This First Time
by Ipthime
Summary: A summer encounter with Sirius unseats Hermione's mind. Back at Hogwarts she occupies herself with detention and dreams. Luna has answers, Neville and Ginny get an evening surprise, Lucius conspires. Does Ron hold the key to everything? Or does Hermione?
1. Chapter 1

**All disclaimer/story information is at the bottom of this chapter.**

---

It was as if time stood still.

The air quivered around the actors frozen in their frantic dance for survival. In the perception of a moment, Harry saw Sirius stagger backwards into the center of the room. Around him, shadows caroused and flashes of light were thrown venomously back and forth between the Order and the Death Eaters. A cry attempted to free itself from Harry's throat as his godfather fell against the frame of the veiled arch and sank down, a look of surprise and denial on his face. Bellatrix poised her wand for a final attack, but with staunch determination, her would-be victim sprung up with a parry. Harry had little time to catch breath before snapping his attention back to the task at hand. _To live_.

-- Two Months Later --

Hermione crept quietly up the stairs, her wand held high. It projected a faint ray of light around her, highlighting her features and the trepidation on her face as she skillfully maneuvered her way around the creaking steps.

_I shouldn't be doing this…._

At the top of the stairs she took a deep breath and closed her eyes against the angles of the moonlit hallway. With a faint smile inching across her face, she savored the memory of what had happened at dinner earlier that evening.

It was late summertime, and everyone was spending the last night before leaving for Hogwarts at number 12, Grimmauld place. London's balmy air permeated the walls stiflingly but Mrs. Weasley had still bustled around the kitchen fixing a hot stew. Meanwhile, Harry, Ron, Sirius, Mr. Weasley, Ginny, Tonks and she, Hermione, sat talking around the table. Harry had been animatedly describing the game of Quiddich they had all played that afternoon at the Weasley's, when Hermione had felt something brush against her leg. She turned to her left and glanced up at the handsome man beside her, a questioning look on her face. Before his gaze could reply, her attention quickly snapped back to Harry's regale of the day's antics.

"I caught sight of something buzzing around Charlie's head so I went for it, but then a bludger came out of nowhere, I guess that was Fred, so then I turned around…"

_There!_

Hermione could have sworn she'd felt a finger run along her knee. She turned again to Sirius, who winked at her and pressed a piece of paper into her palm under the table. She stuffed it in her robes and blushed.

"...But the damn bludger had already hurtled off and smacked Hermione right off her broom. First time playing Quiddich is always the toughest, eh Hermione?" He turned to her and grinned.

She nodded listlessly in agreement, clutching the scrap of paper.

"...Ron had already gone over to make sure she wasn't hurt -"

- Ron blushed fiercely and turned away from the table -

"And she wasn't, thank goodness," chimed in Tonks. "I remember last week Remus almost knocked my teeth out playing beater!"

"Anyway," continued Harry, "Ginny came out of _nowhere_ from the left so I . . ."

Harry's voice faded out in Hermione's mind. All she could think about was the note in her fist as the surrounding conversation buzzed through her head.

As supper ended, she made a quick excuse and read the note in the privacy of the downstairs corridor, amongst dusty cupboards and an elephant-leg umbrella holder.

_Hermione –_

_Meet me in my room at midnight._

_- Sirius_

She had only managed to read the paper twice over before Kreacher had crept around her, a mass of silver cutlery in his arms. He dropped the lot as Hermione jumped in surprise, clutching the paper to her chest. She quickly escaped to her room as Kreacher's watery eyes followed narrowed in dislike. She could still hear him muttering on about 'Mudblood filth' contaminating his mistress' house as she reached the first floor landing.

Alone for a moment while Ginny visited Tonks in her room, Hermione pondered the situation, unable to accept the reality that she, budding student, had been summoned to man's room at an obscenely inappropriate hour. It almost hurt her feminist ego.

"Hey Hermione," said Ginny, smiling as she entered the room. Hermione, startled, let the slip of paper she'd been holding flutter to the floor. "Do you want to go to sleep yet?"

"Oh – uh – no, not quite yet," she'd improvised, "I'm just going to go read in the library until I get sleepy."

---

At the beginning of the summer when she'd first found her eyes following Sirius, this would have been a dream come true for her - the sexy older man's summons to his chambers. But now she was too nervous. She didn't even know what he wanted! Maybe he just had something to tell her related to the Order business…. or wanted to catch up after the brouhaha at the Ministry that had occured at the end of last term. Indeed, she couldn't recall having at all talked to him since then. What _did_ he want? …What did _she _want? Hermione's eyes flicked open, her resolve hardened by curiosity. She stepped forward towards the aged oak door and pressed her hand against its ornate carving. After another moment of hesitation, she gave the surface a gentle knock.

From behind the door, she could hear the rustling of paper and the soft padding of footsteps across the room. Sirius opened the door slowly, letting a crease of firelight bleed out into the hall. Smiling at Hermoine, he motioned her to come in. He closed the door noiselessly behind her as she crossed over to a stained armchair and sat down.

He came towards her eagerly, a relieved smile playing around the corners of his mouth. Hermione could see the ripple of his shoulders under the thin t-shirt and boxers he was wearing. Her heart quickened as he went to back of her chair and ran his fingers over her temples.

"I knew you would come," he said.

Hermoine craned her neck to the side slightly as he whispered in her ear, "I want you Hermione…."

_Is this… what I want?_

The idea of sleeping with an older man attracted Hermione; she often found the boys her age too immature to think about romantically. Harry and Ron were ok, but they were like brothers . . .

_He's only what, twenty years older than me?_

"Sirius…" she exhaled.

But he had already moved in to kiss her and her breath was stopped short by his mouth caressing hers. He moved sideways around the chair as she stood up to meet his dark arms. He pulled back slightly. "Do you still want me?" he asked.

She smiled gently and answered with pressure from her lips. Sirius picked her up with a gallant sweep under her legs and carried her to the bed. He grinned sheepishly at the enacted cliché, Hermione both fearing and anticipating what came next.

_He's everything a woman could wish for. . . and he's so kind. Harry loves him. But do I? Or is that even relevant at this point?_

She bit her lip. They'd barely spoken at all, the silence scared her - the silence stretching back through her mind into memory, and the silence of the present pressing in at her from all sides.

---

Hermione lay there until he was done, eyes closed. It was only when Sirius leaned over her, smiling, that she felt his proximity and opened them. His face relaxed, then tightened into a look of concern. Her eyes were wide and glassy with tears, empty of emotion.

"Hermione….?"

She rolled over, hot, soundless sobs filling the pillow. Sirius crawled next to her, holding her close, burying his face in her hair.

"I'm so sorry," he sighed. He held her there in the light of the erratic fire, two shamelessly naked figures cupping each other in the warmth. As Hermione's breathing calmed, Sirius rose and dressed, leaving her for the more predictable company of the kitchen and a much-needed firewhiskey.

Downstairs, Sirius' lips pressed together tightly, focusing on the burn of alcohol in his throat. Upstairs, Hermione returned to her room in a dream-like state of confusion, hastily packing her trunk for the morrow's return to Hogwarts as Ginny slept on, oblivious of her roommate's state of mind.

---

_**Disclaimer - **I don't own these characters._

_Hello again, everyone! A handful or two of you readers might remember this story from its debut two years ago, when I only got to chapter (gasp) **52** before it was deleted without warning by the crew, probably for its explicit smutty-ness. But it's back! Ok, I had to remove the smut, but I've revised and re-written the story (also consolidated some of the smaller chapters) and will post the whole thing over the next few weeks. I plan to finish the twisty plot as it was intended, sometime before the summer (hopefully). _

_Notes to readers! I love reviews, they make me ) and constructive criticism is always welcome. This story takes place after OotP, in an AU, but you'll have to read on to find out why. . . Rating is still high because, well, it is. Slightly OOC-ness is necessary for the plot, again, read on to find out why. Enjoy!_


	2. Chapter 2

When Sirius awoke late the next morning, Hermione, Harry and the other students had already left for Hogwarts. Cursing, he withdrew into one of Grimmauld Place's musty parlours and sank into an armchair. It was too much right now to face anyone else. Fingering a disintegrating tome on the side-table, Sirius thought back on the summer and the joy of having people around him, people he loved. Especially Harry. And Hermione.

He sighed expansively. The hullabaloo at the Ministry over two months ago had given him a taste of action which he now craved more than ever. Being cooped up in this dark abode was almost as bad as Azkaban . . . almost. Then, like now, he found refuge in happy thoughts of the past - of James and Lily, of the Marauders in their innocent youth, of innocence and youth now discovered in one slightly underage witch.

Thinking was giving Sirius a headache. He growled at himself as he rubbed his head in annoyance. Time extended forward for him in a lazy way, as if it had little in store for the slowly aging man, straddled between the planes of youth and age. He felt the poisonous sinews of Boredom clutching at him all too often, but Dumbledore had made it clear on many occasions that it was most sensible – and safest – for Sirius to remain at number 12, Grimmauld Place. Grudgingly, he had agreed.

But when had sensibility and a desire for safety been his strong points?

**---**

On the Hogwarts train, Hermione put on a façade of compete tranquility, making sure not to seem too rattled or upset, although that was exactly what she felt, for reasons lurking just beyond her grasp. Curled up in a corner of the compartment reading a textbook, Hermione was _bitter_. It startled her.

She hated herself for this confusion which could not be alleviated by looking up her symptoms in a textbook. This was nothing logic or book-smarts could cure! With a frustrated shake back into reality, Hermione realized she had completely zoned out from reading her copy of _101 Better Study Habits for the Modern Witch_. Flipping hastily back through the pages, she struggled to find where she'd last been consciously reading.

"What's up with her?" whispered Ginny, looking quizzically at Harry. He turned to Hermione's huddled form. Her back was hunched, eyes holding a wild look of concentration. A nervous tic plagued her left eye.

"Beats me," he replied. "Probably fell behind on reading through all the assigned."

"Yeah," Ginny chuckled. "You're probably right, mate."

Furiously, Hermione realized they had been talking about her. "Fine, laugh if you want!" she cried out. But when you guys are pulling all-nighters for your next Charms exam, see if I care!" and with a dramatic flounce, she stormed out of the compartment.

It was four startled first years later that she finally found an empty section of the train, which she entered violently, slamming the door open and collapsing on her back in a huff along the seat. It wasn't a minute later that the door opened and familiar voice drawled, "Nice legs, Mudblood."

"Sod off Malfoy," Hermione hissed, sitting up and pulling down her robes from where they had ridden up around her knees.

Draco's laughter echoed around the room as he closed the door and sat down beside her with an evil twinkle in his eye. Hermione rolled her eyes and moved to make a quick escape, but Draco pinned the edge of her robe to the floor with his foot, so she faltered.

"What do you want?" she asked, exasperated.

"Merely the pleasure," his eyes darted up and down her form, "Of your . . . uh, company."

"Bite me, Malfoy" Hermione retorted, flushed with anger. She wrenched away her dress and drew back the compartment door, but before she could exit, Draco pushed it closed. Swiveling around, she gave him a venomous look, but before she could speak he bowed his head and obligingly nipped her neck with his teeth before smirking at her astonished face.

"I didn't mean _literally," _she stumbled.

"I see puberty finally hit," he whispered in her ear. "I like what it's done to you."

"Geroff!" growled Hermione, pushing him forcefully back. He laughed as she stalked ferociously down the corridor, arms clenched at her sides in humiliation.

"See you!" he yelled back at her, before sliding the door closed. He felt childish, but excited.

_How funny, _he thought to himself. _I almost like her_. He smirked at the adolescent thoughts running through his head. Somewhere along the way, his passion had crossed the demure little line between Despise and Desire.

---

Draco finally sought Hermione out three days later, as she was taking advantage of an empty classroom to practice turning a roll of socks into a cupcake. She didn't even notice the presence of her long-time enemy until he had already entered and pushed the door closed.

"Hello Granger," he exhaled.

Hermione's neck snapped back and her eyes darkened as she saw who had invaded her private space. "_You" _she spat. "What do you want _now?_"

"Well that's very nice of you," said Draco with a mock hurt tone in his voice. "I drop by to say hello to a classmate and she spurns me. How delightful. You really are _so _charming." He leaned his hands against the desk Hermione was working at and gave her a cheeky grin. It was an odd change from his characteristic smirk and Hermione felt wary. She realized she was getting tired of feeling so. . .

"Is that all?" she asked in a bored voice. The past few days she had occupied her thoughts mostly with the topic of Sirius, and she had run threadbare the memory of their last night together.

"What if it isn't?" bantered the blonde boy, leaning closer to her. He put his hand gently on her arm as he moved in, eagerly and almost menacingly. Hermione's initial reaction was to flinch at his touch, but she felt a warmth tingle through her body.

"Hermione?" said a familiar voice, as the door creaked open. A sliver of light entered the poorly-lit room, illuminateing dead center Draco poised over Hermione at her desk.

"Get out, Malfoy!" Harry yelled, raising his wand. "Leave Hermione alone!" He walked quickly into the room and Hermione saw that Draco too, had pulled out his wand. But rather than staying for a fight, he smirked at his scar-faced adversary and moved towards the exit.

"You're not even worth my time," he drawled, leaving. Harry trailed him with a scowl, then dashed over to his friend.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his concerned face now leaning over hers where Draco's had been moments before.

"Yes, I – Yeah. I – I'm fine, Harry," stammered Hermione, avoiding his gaze as she rose from her seat. His eyes followed her as she walked away, suspicious of the silence. "You know," she said, turning around, "You really didn't need to do all that." There was something almost spiteful in her voice. "I don't need your interference."

"Hermione, what's with you?" Harry asked incredulously, following her. He grabbed her shoulders and peered half jokingly into her face. "You aren't acting like yourself."

Hermione shook him off and gave him a hurt look. "I don't always need you, Harry," she hissed. "Stop acting so righteous and . . ." she paused, " . . . condescending."

Harry could scarcely believe that the impertinently twitching head of brown hair he watched exit the room belonged to one of his closest friends.

---

Hermione ran down the corridor, up to the head girl's dorm she shared with Ron (who had been named Head Boy). Their sleeping quarters were linked by a small common room in which Harry usually (Ginny, Neville or Luna, occasionally) joined them in camaraderie. Whether it was while doing homework, playing chess and drinking butterbeer, or toasting bread swiped from the kitchens on the end of the hearth tongs, the small common room was a center of activity for the trio and their friends. It was cozily equipped with a long couch and two armchairs which flocked around the fireplace. On the other side of the room, a table and set of chairs were placed, supposedly for more academic purposes. The décor shimmered in shades of red and gold, and two Gryffindor banners adorned the walls, one for each of the Heads.

After mumbling the password (banoffe pie) to a marble bust of the sorceress Galinda, Hermione slipped inside. She caught her robes in the door and had to yank them free, cursing all the while.

"What's wrong Hermione?" asked Ron, from his perch in an armchair by the fire.  
"Nothing," she said quietly, moving towards her room.  
"Come off it, Hermione, you look like someone canceled Christmas," he hedged. "If you don't tell me what's wrong, you'll have to snap out of your little strop, then!"

Ron came up behind her as she reached the door to her bedroom and wrapped his arms around her. She turned into his chest and started to cry.

"Oh Ron!" she sniffled. It seemed to her that over the summer she and this gangly red-haired boy had become closer and closer friends. Harry spent most of the time they hadn't been playing Quiddich at the Weasley's discussing darker matters with Sirius. It had often ended up that she and Ron were left to their own devices, and while these never evolved romantically – although once Ginny had accused them and Ron _had_ blushed – it encouraged a fine intimacy which, Hermione feared, at times threatened to exclude Harry.

"There now, don't cry, it can't be as bad as all that," he chuckled. "All right, maybe it is," he revised, as Hermione started sobbing louder. "But I won't know until you tell me!"

"Come on, let's go sit down." He led her over to the sofa, where they both collapsed, Hermione cradling her face in her hands.

"Ron," Hermione whispered. "I -" 

But she was cut off by Harry, (to whom they always gave the password), entering the room.

"Oh -," he stumbled. "I just wanted to –,"

"Hey Harry come on in!" interrupted Ron, drowning out his protestations. Hermione used the cover of Ron's prattle to dab at her eyes and then quickly slip into her room, away from the fuss and bother.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

As night bled into morning, the shadows of Hermione's jaw against her arm sharpened and solidified. Somewhere in the castle, a blonde-haired boy was pacing the bathroom floor in frustration, punching the wall every few steps. Somewhere in the castle, a thin, pale girl was staring at her window, seeing something other than her reflection within its smoky surface. And here, in Hermione's room, she dreamt about sunshine, cauliflower, and a lover's arms.

_The buttery rays of afternoon spread across the grass in an oily film, and Hermione raced across its slippery surface to the hovel in the distance. Little cauliflower-men sprung from the ground to pull her back, but she kicked them away without thinking. She reached the tiny structure she had set her sights on, and breathless, walked behind it only to fling herself into her lover's arms. She knew it was him by the way he smelled, by the creases of his smiles and the rough touch of his gentlest fingers. _

_He greeted her with his mouth pressed lovingly against hers, sniffing affectionately the almond scent of her hair. _

"_Oh!" she exclaimed, "I missed you so."_

"_I had to find the right moment to sneak away," he explained, not with that _thing_ following me around like a nanny goat."_

"_I'm so glad you're here."_

"_So am I."_

_They lay down in the dry grasses of the empty field and made love in the shadows of the broom-shed. In the distance, they could hear laughter and the dull thump of a bludger meet its mark._

---

In the morning, Hermione could barely remember her dream, or the last time she'd eaten a proper meal. Hastily wriggling out of her nightgown, she felt the castle cold nip at her skin with little frozen tongues of air. She threw on her clothes as quickly as she could. The common room was empty, and Ron's door was open. _He must already be at breakfast _she grumbled, dashing out of the quarters and down the stairs. Hermione was still muttering to herself about pack mentality when she turned a corner and bumped right into Draco, who, with his arms crossed, leaning against the wall looking bored, seemed like he had been waiting for someone.

"You again," she said levelly.  
"Me again?" he asked in mock question.  
"Gods, you're infuriating!" she almost shrieked, making as if to hit him, but he clutched at her wrists with strong hands and planted a kiss firmly on her lips.

---

Hermione was left standing in the corridor, shocked. Even five, ten minutes after Draco had left the vicinity, she stayed rooted to the spot as if someone had performed a freezing charm on her. True, she'd known, (to an extent) what she'd been getting herself into when she had met Draco on the train. But somehow... it had never really registered in her mind that his intentions could be any more than teasing sport.

But that kiss! Dozens of people must have seen! Wasn't Draco usually so damn self-aware of his public image? That was truly odd, Hermione decided. He was still Him, yet the Him that was He had changed . . .

He had _kissed_ her!

Most disturbingly of all, to Hermione, at least – she had kind of liked it.

---

By the time Hermione had snapped back to reality, she realized she was dreadfully late to her first class. And - what luck - it was Advanced Potions. Running her fingers through her hair and massaging her bruised wrists, she set off hastily to the dungeons.

_Man is Snape gonna kill me... Shitshitshit I better come up with a decent excuse._

She burst through the thick door not altogether gracefully, bracing herself for Snape's salvo of insults. Weaving her way through the aisles of the classroom, she sat down as quickly as possible. Before she could open her mouth to toss out a, "I'm-so-sorry-I'm-late-Professor-Snape-Peeves-was-throwing-chalk-at-me," an icy voice reached her ears.

"Miss. Granger, you take your time I see," he said quietly, writing on the board. "I think that will be detention every night for the rest of the week. 8:00pm," he looked over his shoulder at her and gave her a piercing look. "Be prompt. It would not do well to be tardy for a detention gained through tardiness."

"Yes Professor," said Hermione meekly, slouching lower in her seat. Next to her, Blaise Zabini stifled a laugh and she glared at him.

_Thank goodness Draco isn't taking advanced potions, that was so mortifying!_

She'd been sitting next to Harry and Ron in potions since they were first years, but as neither of them had made Snape's advanced potions class with their OWL's, she was left alone – the only Gryffindor – with a smattering of Slytherins.

Looking defiantly around the room at her smirking classmates, Hermione just counted herself fortunate that Snape hadn't said anything more biting than he had.

"Get to work Miss. Granger or I'll make it detention for all next week as well," Snape said unctuously from the front of the classroom.

_Fuck._

It was a Tuesday, and four detentions was already four too many than Hermione could deal with. Five more would be beating the dead horse. She sighed and quickly started chopping ingredients.

Meanwhile, her professor was staring intently at his brunette student, with her fierce concentration and lithe little body.

_Attraction is a funny thing_ he thought, pursing his lips.

---

The classroom was empty when Hermione stepped inside that evening, ready for an hour of cauldron scrubbing. The classroom was dark except for two candles in their sconces on either side of the blackboard. They cast leering shadows around the student as she crossed the room.

"Professor Snape?" she called out, her words echoing off the stone walls. Hermione stooped and crossed her arms.

_I am not going to waste my time waiting here, _she thought, annoyed.

But turning to leave, a ray of light coming from the far corner of the room caught her eye. She walked over to it and saw a stone door, painstakingly worked to look like the wall around it, standing ever so slightly ajar. Peeking her head inside, it opened up to what seemed to be Snape's private study. She edged in between the door and the wall and slipped past the door. She looked around her in awe – it wasn't a private study, it was a whole set of rooms, it seemed. Snape's quarters! The room she had entered was covered with a thick forest-green carpet, and as she walked further in, her feet sank luxuriously into it. The walls were lined with dark wooden bookcases, filled with every tome imaginable, bound in silk and linen, bark and hide. In the center of the room were armchairs and to their left, a roaring fire. At the back of the room were windows magicked to show a snowy scene outside. Doors led away from the right half of the room, presumably to more intimate spaces.

Hermione's breath caught in her throat as Professor Snape came into view, standing by the far left bookcase, clad only in awhile towel wrapped around his torso, skimming through a dusty tome. He faced away from her, but heard her short gasp and shot around so quickly Hermione was almost afraid his neck would crack.

"Miss Granger," he spat out, eyes flashing. "I thought I told you to meet me in my classroom, not my bedroom."

"I - I'm sorry Professor," stammered Hermione, stepping into the light. "I just wanted to know what I'd be doing for my detention..." her voice trailed off as she caught sight of the book he was flipping through.

"Is that really..." she gasped, going up to the book. "Potions dus Novus Ordo Seclorum?" She almost stumbled forward with excitement to better see the cover.

"Yes, Potions of the New Order of the Ages." he answered, lip curled in secret pleasure. Her innocent, know-it-all act was infuriating, but somehow endearing as well. He closed the book lovingly and turned it so Hermione could see it better.

"But... there's only one known copy of this book left!" She looked up to Snape for an answer. "It contains all of the oldest potions in existence - from Ancient Greece... and Egypt... and Rome... and it can't be reproduced!" she exclaimed. "There's an anti-copy spell on it!"

"I am well aware of the book's history, Miss. Granger," said Snape dryly. "This _is_ the only copy left, saved from the burning of the Library of Alexandria due to the sheer luck that it was checked out at the time."

"That's amazing," said Hermione, admiring the ancient book. She looked up into Snape's sharp face, and nervously voiced her desires.

"May I - may I look through it?"

Snape paused, lips pressed together tightly, those expressive lips of his. After a moment, he answered, "As you wish," handing it to her.

Hermione gave him a look of pure gratitude to be given this honor, receiving the book like it was a forbidden gem. She'd almost forgotten Snape's casual attire (or lack thereof), and as she took the book from him, she glanced at his body, blushing.

He may be roughly twice her age, and a greasy old git, as far as his students were concerned, but he was still a man at his peak... and in an intoxicatingly close proximity to a certain young lady.

Ignoring her professor, Hermione took the book and flipped through some pages. It was fascinating, but her thoughts kept wandering back to Snape's intruiging form, his shoulder length black hair, still wet from a shower, flopping lazily over one of his eyes.

_And I always considered teachers aging sources of knowledge... it's hard to think they're really people like the rest of us sometimes, _she mused. _With their own lives to live, their own desires . . .Damn it Hermione, Snape out of it! I mean..._ snap _out of it. Oh dear . . ._

_Though actually, he's just the same age as Sirius._

_Sirius._

"Entranced with the Potion of Ardor, eh Miss. Granger?" Snape's voice flowed silkily into her ear from behind her. She could feel his warmth seeping into her back, her spine... and into her cheeks as she reddened, realizing she'd been staring at the same page for longer than necessary.

"It's fascinating," she breathed, spinning around.

She found herself mere inches from Snape's chest. She looked up at him, her expression wanton and petulant. His coal black eyes pierced hers, questioning her silently.

_What are you going to do now?_

Still holding the book, she stood on tip toe and took his bottom lip between her own, pulling it in a sensual kiss before returning to the ground. His look did not change. Then suddenly, he leaned down and caught her mouth with his own, his tongue lustily seeking entry. She backed into the wall of shelves and abandoned the book she had been so enraptured with there, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, sucking and biting his tongue and he caressed her mouth turn.

_I don't care if he's a teacher, I want him, _thought Hermione lustily as naughty thoughts ran through her head. Naughty thoughts were running through Snape's as well, but so were much darker ones . . .


	4. Chapter 4

The brown clouds rolled fitfully in the wind outside the domed window. Hermione sighed. It wasn't like her to drift off in class like that. She redirected her attention to Professor Binns' incessant droning.

"The Goblin wars of 1526 were momentous due to the fact that the chief Goblin Ugg the Irritable..."

Hermione found her hand taking the notes down independently of her brain, which was thinking hard. She was trying to sort out her thoughts concerning her actions over the past week and a half.

She hadn't spoken to Draco since the morning he'd kissed her, but she hadn't forgotten that morning very quickly. It lay over her mind like a stifling sheet. She felt like he was up to something, perhaps it was the added curl to his lip when their eyes met in the hall, or a deliberate brush to her shoulder as they passed each other on the way to dinner.

_Professor Snape is a different thing entirely. _

She put her pen down, her face turned towards the window, eyes focused in the distance, following the movement of the sky.

_And Sirius. _

_What happened over the summer? It's so blurry, all I seem to remember is that evening. The note. And feeling like something horrible had gone completely askew._

**---**

Luna waited for the other girl to finish peeing. She couldn't bring herself to pee when anyone else was in the loo with her.

She sighed.

_Hurry the fuck up! You've been pissing for -_

She checked her wrist.

_23 seconds!_

After what seemed like an eternity, the toilet flushed and the other girl went to wash her hands. As soon as Luna heard the door close, she relaxed.

A minute or two later, standing at the chipped marble tap to wash her hands, Luna looked at herself in the mirror. She turned to the left, then to the right, letting the hot water run over her palms.

She scrunched up her nose. Then she opened her mouth and folded her tongue in half. Pouting her lips, she flexed her nostrils.

She shook her hands dry before wiping the excess moisture on her simple black robes. Standing back from the mirror, she took herself in.

_A hopeless case,_ she thought, sighing. _Mother always said so, for I could care less about the antics of women's vanity._

Wrinkling her nose again, she shook her hair free from her face. It ran all the way down to the hollow at the base of her spine, undulating in waves of milk and honey. She was very proud of her hair. It had taken her hair three years to get that long after she'd cropped it close to her skull the summer before coming to Hogwarts.

_Mother was so horribly angry with me!_

She'd sheared it all off with a severing charm - coming nigh close to taking off her own neck as well - as part of a purification ritual of her own design, a preparation for a new era of her life.

_One more year here... Then I can do my research on the rarer species of the world, and show people that they _do_ exist. And then I can study mythology and folklore... And open an itinerant pastry shop..._

Sighing, she stood on her tip toes.

_Maybe people would take me seriously if I were taller... more imposing._

But she wasn't tall, nor was she short. However, her petite frame gave her the illusion of possessing more stature than she actually had. And far from imposing, her physical form happened to be utterly feminine. She wouldn't have scared away a lame gnat.

Her eyes were two almondine orbs wreathed with dark lashes, and her aquiline nose led the eye down to round red lips, what Thomas Hardy would have called, 'a rose filled with snow.' Her top lip had a habit of separating itself from its counterpart, which lent her a blank sort of look, especially when in conjunction with her eyes, which habitually went out of focus.

They had just started to do so, when she turned and left the bathroom, trudging back to her dorm, which was mercifully empty from the other giggling Ravenclaw girls. Pulling a slightly squashed chocolate éclair from her trunk (snitched that afternoon from the kitchens), she gave it a sniff. Inhaling the scent of chocolate glaze and vanilla cream, she took a bite.

_Everyone thinks I'm so damn weird for smelling my food before I eat it. But honestly, it's quite practical. It ensures that it really is what it is, for one thing, rather than something nasty. If everyone smelled their food before taking a bite, Fred and George Weasley wouldn't have gotten away with fooling so many people with their enchanted candy. Those Canary Creams had a definitive odour!_

_Alastor understood, _mused the dreamy witch._ He smelled everything that passed his lips to check for poison. He understood me quite well in fact. But he never talked to me again after I kissed him after class that one day._

Stuffing the rest of the éclair in her mouth, she gathered up her pajamas and tucked them under her cloak. Everyone else was at dinner and it was the perfect time for her to bathe – Luna's favorite time, in fact, for then there would be no one to interrupt her.

Luna never used the dorm showers, not after she'd discovered the password to the Slytherins' prefects' bathroom in her second year, while eavesdropping on two lovers in the library.

She found the large bathtub more accommodating to daydreaming than the open shower stalls in the common bathroom. Making her way down to this private sanctuary, her mind drifted back to one of the only really happy times in her school-life.

_It's a pity we don't have those D.A. meetings anymore. Though I guess we don't need them, now that we have Professor Loki to teach us Defense against the Dark Arts. I suppose she's a good teacher, but not half as interesting as Remus. He was a real biscuit!. But he wouldn't really speak to me either, after I caught him alone in his study . . ._

Her mind drifted back to the memory.

It had been a cold winter's evening she'd seen his office door open and drifted in.

"Hello Miss Lovegood," he'd said, arranging some folders on the shelf behind his desk. "To what do I owe the pleasurer of this visit?"

She'd inclined her head to the side, looking at him, then approached the unprepared teacher and on tip toes, given him a feathery kiss before exiting _sans un mot_.

After she'd left, Professor Lupin had touched his fingers to his mouth gently. It was in slow, absent-minded way that he sat down slowly, looking out the door after her. Perhaps she had reminded him of someone. But of course, Luna hadn't seen any of that.

_Thank goodness Professor Loki is a girl, I don't know what Dumbledore would do if I got rid of another Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, _she thought smugly. Even the girl herself wasn't sure if whether or not she was joking half the time.

She reached the bathroom. In three years, the password had never changed, perhaps because it was so unconventional.

"Blue Balls," she said clearly, and the grinning painting of Pan bid her enter.

**---**

"Hey Harry," said Ron, as his best friend slipped through the door of the common room. Ron was sprawled on floor searching for something in his bag, its contents spread around him.

"Where's Hermione?" asked Harry.

"Last detention with Snape,"a Ron answered grudgingly. "Honestly, she's had them all last week _and_ all this week, just for being late to class one day." He shook his head. "It's ridiculous!"

"A whole fornight's detention?," asked Harry, perturbed. That was rather drastic, even for Snape. "Hmm…" While Harry was lost in thought, Ron finally found the document he'd been searing for.

"Ah ha!" he exclaimed, "I found it!"

"Found what?"

"My Divination homework. I couldn't seem to find it anywhere."

"I wish Hermione was still in that class, she could help us with our assignments!" laughed Harry. Neither he, nor Ron were very happy about still having to take the class, but the requirements for Aurors had changed, increasing their course-load by two long-hated classes – Divination and History of Magic.

"Yeah," replied Ron. "I bet she'd like it better now that we have Firenze teaching us, though. But I pity anyone who still has to endure Professor Trelawney."  
"Ha, me too." Said Harry. "I_ almost_ feel like I'm learning stuff with Firenze."  
"Hmph. Almost," conceded Ron. "I still stand by the idea that divination is a load of rubbish."

Harry couldn't help thinking about the two predictions Professor Trelawney had made that had come true. It might be a rubbish subject... (And Harry wouldn't have been thinking it if he hadn't witnessed the truth behind them...) but Divination did seem to have its redeeming points as a useful art. Dumbledore at least, believed in them, thought Harry, leaning against the mantelpiece. So did Lord Voldemort for that matter.

"Hey Harry, d'you wanna grab us some food from the kitchens? I bet Hermione'll be hungry by the time she gets back, and I'm already feeling peckish," Ron called from the floor.

"Alright, but I'll have to run up and get my invisibility cloak first. It's 11:55, I won't have time to go all the way down to the kitchens and back in five minutes."

"Ok. Hopefully...I'll have found...my Transfiguration homework...by then..." Ron's voice was muffled as his head was jammed inside his book bag.

"Be right back then," Harry said, slipping into the corridor.

He raced up the stairs to the Gryffindor dorm. It was strangely lonely up there without Ron... He'd sort of hoped his friend wouldn't get Head Boy... He, Harry, didn't expect to get it, anyway. After all, Dumbledore had admitted his reasons to not making Harry a prefect... But he had strongly wished that Ron would get to stay with him and keep him company in the Gryffindor tower.

_It's damn selfish of me. But I do miss him. He is my best friend, after all._

He passed Professor Loki and Peeves having a chalk fight in the corridor, and then narrowly missed colliding with Professor McGonagall while turning the corner.

"You should be in bed Potter. It's midnight." She peered up at him through her reading glasses, a book held open in one hand and a violet night cap perched on her head.

When Harry had first come to Hogwarts, she had towered over him, making an imposing figure. But now that he had grown some, the 5'7" woman had to incline her neck slightly to look him in the eye.

"I was just going back to my room, Professor," he said.

"Alright then, off with you," she returned, giving him a nod. "Good night."

"Good night Professor," he replied.

He scrambled up to his room, waving at Dean and Seamus, who were bent over a textbook. Back in his dorm, he quickly grabbed the invisibility cloak, and then, for fear of running into any other teachers, he snatched up the Marauder's Map. Making sure there was no one in the hall outside the portrait, he leapt down the stairs, headed for the kitchens.

Checking the map under his cloak, he affirmed that his path was clear, only having to slip past a yawning Professor Flitwick in front of his destination. The teacher had both arms piled with food, his gaping mouth uncovered.

_He has a bloody big mouth for such a tiny guy, _shuddered Harry. _Sort of like a snake._

After obtaining a platter of cold cuts, fruit, three bottles of butterbeer, and quickly escaping the altogether too helpful house elves ("Dobby is so glad Harry Potter has come to visit him, Dobby will get Harry Potter anything he wants to eat, what is Harry Potter hungry for? Oh, Harry Potter should like some treacle tart, wouldn't he?) Harry checked the map with his free hand.

_Ron in his room... Dumbledore in his office... Filch in the Great Hall... Hermione in the dungeons..._

Harry's eyes flicked back to the dot labeled 'Hermione.'

_Shouldn't her detention be over by now?_

There was a smudge of ink under the script detailing her name. Harry peered over his map to look closer at it.

Hermione's dot moved over slightly, revealing the 'smudge' - another dot, directly underneath hers.

_Severus Snape._


	5. Chapter 5

"There you are!" exclaimed Ron, rushing up to help Harry with the food. "I was getting really hungry"  
"Yeah, me too, said Harry, his voice subdued.

Harry had quickly pushed aside any hopeful thoughts that maybe she'd fallen on top of him during her detention... slipped and crashed into him during the detention that was supposed to have ended much earlier...

Ron sighed, his hand only half way to his mouth with a bottle of butterbeer. "What's the matter, Harry?"

"I'm just really tired."

"Right, and I'm double D. Come on Harry, you look really upset."  
"Nothing, I'm- I'm going to bed."

Harry set down the platter of food and moved towards the door.

"You should go to bed too," he called behind him as he left, his voice cracking.

Ron watched the door slam shut.

_What the devil is up with him?_

Harry's steps were mechanical as he pulled the hood of the invisibility cloak over his head and made his way back to Gryffindor tower. As he passed the infirmary, he heard whispering, but gave it little thought as he felt his legs got heavier with every step.

---

First thing the next morning, he stormed up to the owlery. Harry was confused and upset; anguished that one of his best friends was sleeping with the man he _hated, _that his father had hated before him. He needed to talk to someone. He needed to owl Sirius, Sirius would understand.

Harry grabbed a quill and a bit of parchment, scribbling violently, he poured out his thoughts, oblivious to the angry thumbprints threatening to tear the paper it held down.

_Sirius,_

_I need some advice. I caught Hermione last night on the Marauder's map and I think she was shagging Snape. She hasn't mentioned any of this to me or Ron, she's gone completely behind our backs and betrayed us, lying every night since we got back that she has detention. I would never have thought Hermione would go so low to sleep around, but I suppose the alternative is that she really cares for that greasy git... and I don't know what's worse. I'm really at a loss, I don't know what to say to her, or whether to say anything at all.. Sirius, how would you handle this? I don't know how I can face either Hermione or that bastard, after what I saw. Please answer quickly._

_- Harry_

---

Hermione walked slowly into the Great Hall the next morning, treading carefully. She was painfully aware of the usual set of eyes trailing her across the room, and she sought deliberately to appear calm and confident as she made her way to the Gryffindor table.

Draco's gaze was pinned to her form, and as Blaise witnessed the non-verbal exchange, hen found himself quietly observing her too, as she strode across the Great Hall. His fiery gaze took in her every movement, the careful steps she tried not to make too obvious.

_So _this_ is who Draco has chosen?_ He thought. _Very interesting._

Draco noticed where Blaise's gaze was aimed and discretely took a cold glance in the direction of his friend. Blaise smirked at his friend and raised his eyebrows as if to ask, "Who, me?"

Draco felt like someone had plunged his body in ice water.

"Hey Hermione, want some toast?" Ron asked, a bit too cheerfully for the morning. "Buck up Neville, let her pull up some bench."

"Thanks," said Hermione, sliding onto the seat beside Harry as Neville and Ron slid over to give her room.

"Look, Hermione..." said Harry quietly, "I was out getting some stuff from the kitchen last night."

She looked up from her plate of scrambled eggs. Harry seemed torn, his voice threatening to crack with unspoken anger.

"I had the map with me."

"Oh?" she asked, barely blinking.

"I know where you were," Harry blurted out, "and who you were with." He clenched and unclenched his jaw. "I just wanted you to know that you could have said something, you could have -"

But he was cut of by Hermione's raised voice. "If you think for one second that I am obligated to tell you every intimate detail of my life, then you can – !"

"You should have told me! You should have us!" people around them were beginning to stare.

" – then you can shove it up your ass, because you have no right to – "

"YOU MADE IT MY BUSINESS!" yelled Harry. "The moment you even _thought_ –"

"Guys!" yelled Ron, his face pasted with a look of complete shock. Hermione shoved away her plate of food and ran out of the hall. Harry sat back down stiffly and wouldn't look at Ron in the eye.

"I sincerely don't know what is wrong with you two, and I almost hope I never find out," said Ron, roughly.

From across the hall, three pairs of eyes had watched the heated exchange with interest.

The gray ones, with anger.  
The black ones, with suspicion.

And the last pair, burning and coal-like... with amused curiosity.

---

Sirius was frozen with shock, gripping Harry's letter so hard it was ripping where his thumbs pressed into the fiber.

He looked back down at the letter.

_Why is she doing this? To make me jealous? No. She wouldn't even _speak_ to me before she left. . . and she's _obviously _enjoying Snape's company._

The man put his hands over his eyes and rubbed at them furiously.

_But why? How could she?_

He let out a groan of anguish. _Then she must have decided _exactly _what she wanted . . . and gone through with it. That's the only explaination._

Sirius swallowed the bitterness that threatened to rise in his throat, but it wouldn't stay down. Vomiting violently behind an evil-looking potted plant in a corner of the study, he grabbed his quill, arm shaking, and wrote Harry a reply.

_Harry -_

It's her business. She's old enough to decide what she wants.

---

The classroom was only half full as Hermione slid into her seat, her lab partner as yet absent. She had been late to Potions once, she wasn't about to make the same mistake again... more because she didn't want to test Snape's inclinations towards her, less because she feared more detentions.

_Although I bet he'd like that_, she thought smugly.

Blaise perched himself on the chair beside her as she arranged in front of her the rest of the ingredients for the concentration potion they'd begun.

The room filled up with students and they continued work on the magenta sludge in their cauldrons, although Blaise's was more of a teal blue.

She drowned out the sound of Snape's voice criticizing another student with her tumultuous thoughts.

_What a perfect coincidence, that Harry had the map with him in that short span of time, last night. I bet he keeps it with him all the time, just to spy on me and everyone else in this castle . . . What _would _he find, I wonder. There has to be something more interesting going on in this castle than just my student-Professor affair! _

Half-delirious with lack of sleep, Hermione had a sudden image of Harry and Professor McGonagall doing what she and Professor Snape (she just couldn't bring herself to call him Severus) had been doing the other eveing. She snickered into her cauldron, drawing her classmate's eyes.

Snape raised his eyebrows.

"Do you have a joke to share with us Miss. Granger?" he asked tiredly.

"No Professor," said Hermione, blushing.

Blaise watched her curiously as she turned pink, vigorously stirring the mixture in her cauldron as she waited for her embarrassment to wear off.

_What in Merlin's Middle Ages does Draco want with _her? He sneered silently. _Because if I'm right, then she won't have a very nice time of it, no, not at all . . ._


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

The classroom was dark. She could only faintly sense the shadows of furniture as she felt her way to the front of the room, groping for something tangent to steady her.

_My head hurts..._

She sat on the table, shivering involuntarily.

_Where is he? Why are the lights off?_

"Hermione."

"I was waiting for you," she gasped out, the chilling air numbing her lungs, his fingers on her cheek ghostly and surreal.

**_It had to be a dream, this haze which surrounded her. This invaded sleep, adulterated by her own aggressive mind, sought sanctuary. The time turner. It lay in her palm like a golden halo, the epitome of power..._**

_Time._

_**What a beautiful, wonderful thing is time.**_

_It passes silently, exhaling our dreams like a powered dust, the dust of the ages._

**_She held it tightly in her fist, battling the images before her, fighting the memories. Memories? More like visions, the harsh prophecy of truth. How strange that _her_ prophecy was _everyone's _prophecy._**

_How unsurprising, that we are all connected._

**_Someone came and left this here, but it was too late. Or too early... Was there still a chance to change this thread? _**

Time. What an odd concept.

The Hours started their drone, and the Minutes chimed in with tinny whistles. The Seconds sang in soft sopranos, while the Years gave depth with their bass voices. The Decades and Centuries hummed deeply in the background of the orchestra, so low their tunes could barely reach her ears. In the thin air of this place, it sounded like a song.

_**Everything spends me,  
They try to buy me,  
You cannot hide me,  
You cannot see me,  
Touch or hear me,  
You cannot feel me,  
Yet I am here.  
You cannot measure me,  
I have no sides,  
On my back the universe rides.**_

**_I bite at rock and gnaw at steel,  
I push the tide and roll the wheel,  
I am neither old nor young,  
Here when these first tales were spun,  
And I am still here,  
While they are told._**

**_I am used, renewed and wasted,  
The first and last; the apple tasted,  
Friend of enemies,  
Friend of friend, and foe,  
Of all things._**

_**I am King of kings,  
I am peasant's slave, **_

_**I enslave,  
All.**_

_**Kind, cruel, wise, fool,  
Am I.**_

**_The future scared her, she could not deny that. And this future scared her even more. This future she came so close to bearing on her shoulders, this person she was almost to become. She held the time turner slightly, wishing for sleep, wanting the moments, to steal her away._**

_If that is what I was destined to become, what now?_

_**She gripped the golden ring harder, encircling the fragile erection of glass with her fingers. Her mind was lost in thought, unaware of the glass cracking, breaking and digging under her skin. The device represented time, but it was not so impermeable, so eternal. It was mortal glass, embraced quickly by a responsive flow of warm blood.**_

_But I changed it. _I _changed it._

She closed her eyes, willing herself to see it all again.

---

**_"And this little piggy went to market..." he laughed, reveling at the cheeky smile she returned to him. The cool morning light framed the dust in the air, and Hermione stretched her arms out to welcome him into her._**

**---**

_**Later, he sat up and placed a small red box on her stomach.**_

_**"I bought you this."**_

**_She gave him a curious look and removed the satiny lid. Inside was coiled a thin gold chain, and attached to it, a large oval, cradling a slender hourglass. "It's beautiful! Oh darling, thank you." She kissed him softly. "But . . . is this really a time turner?"_**

"_**It is indeed!" he laughed. "Probably the only one that escaped the mess we made at the Ministry!"**_

_**Hermione seemed shocked. "But then you should have turned this over to them!" Indignantly, she shook his arm off of her shoulder. "It's too dangerous!" she exclaimed. "I don't want it, take it back!" Putting the lid back on, she pressed the gift back into his hands.**_

**_"And this little piggy went 'wee wee wee' all the way home!" he laughed, pinching her toe. She collapsed in giggles as he tickled her foot._**

"_**Take it, Hermione," he whispered in her ear. "I think it's very old . . . you'll appreciate it more than I."**_

**_She laughed lightly, tossing her hair back in amusement. "Fine then!" she said, slipping the box into the pocket of her Muggle coat, flung over the end of the bed. "But when you find the world around you in chaos, it will probably be my fault!"_**

**_Her lover caressed the pink-and-white well-formed foot in his lap. "You have beautiful toes, Hermione."_**

_**"I do believe you have a little toe fetish!"**_

_**"I have a little Hermione fetish," he murmured.**_

"**_...'wee wee wee' all the way home..." _**

_**She could hear him screaming.**_

_He didn't scream... I did._

She tossed fitfully amongst the damp sheets. The world was spinning faster, faster, faster, nothing was immutable; it was a jumble, a chaotic drug trip.

_**"Hermione Granger, I thee wed..."**_

_**"Stop joking around, I'm not marrying you and you know it," she laughed.**_

_But her laugher faded and when she opened her eyes, she was no longer in the sunny attic with her lover. In a room furnished with dark red and blue velvet, there was no light. It was richly decked out but something was wrong . . . a smell, the smell of her own fear._

_**She reached for her wand.**_

_**"Don't touch me," she warned.**_

**_He grabbed her wrist._**

**_No. No! NO!!_**

**---**

**_She looked at her form in the mirror, bruised . . . the cut above her eye, the purple blotches on her neck. The blood between her legs. _**

The next morning was a haze of narcotic smoke, willing her to let go...

---

Hermione woke up from her dream-within-a-dream masked in a cold sweat. She lay fully-clothed between the heavy covers of her Potions Professor's bed, a fire burning out dully behind the grate. She felt lost and oddly disoriented, as if someone had hit her in the head with a bludger.

Slipping out from between the blankets, she looked for a sign of her Professor Snape but he wasn't in the bedroom, nor was he in his parlour. Confused, she exited the under-ground apartments and crept upstairs to her own warm bed.

Five minutes later, she tiptoed across the common room she shared with Ron, opened the door to her room and collapsed exhausted on her four-poster. She was almost asleep when she remembered part of her dream, or vision. Quickly, she crossed the room, afraid of what she might find. Rifling through her trunk, she finally found what she was looking for. The black pea-coat she wore while in the Other World, wooly and warm and worn at the elbows. And bulging at the pocket!

As if placed there by some cruel twist of fate, she pulled out a small box, and inside –

_The time turner._


	7. Chapter 7

The cold dawn light filtered lazily in through the window by Hermione's bed as she awoke, trying to grasp onto the odd remnants of a dream. It seemed less dreamlike and more real, yet more elusive, than anything she had ever experienced during her private, dark hours of repose. Yet she could barely even remember having to creep up to her room from Snape's dungeons last night. Only images and scraps of endless conversation flitted before her, remnants of her dream - yet she could only sense the emotion when hearing the voices, the words floating just beyond her reach.

Hermione was left with only an overwhelming feeling of desperation and trepidation, as if someone was drowning unawares and she was the one spectator who could come to the rescue of the hapless soul. There was a bitter taste in Hermione's mouth as she contemplated the feeling, forcing herself to rise and dress. In the bathroom, she scrubbed her tongue while she brushed her teeth, in an effort to rid herself of the horrid sensation.

Breakfast was another trial of getting to the Gryffindor table before the inevitable blush crept too high up the neckline of Hermione's robes, her intuition aware that she held more than one person's gaze.

_Potions next. And I get to see Severus. _

She smiled inwardly. Her detentions had established a strange relationship, or, more accurately, non-relationship between her and her Potions Master. But whatever had happened the other night – she really didn't want to confront him about, well, whatever she'd done, whatever had happened to her.

She slipped into her seat in the dungeons after passing an almost wordless meal with Harry and Ron, who had filled the silence by commenting absentmindedly on trifling issues. Like the colour of the marmalade.

Hermione laughed to herself as she brought Ron's expression to the surface of her mind. He had just observed that the spread 'wasn't half as orange as usual,' and was in an effort to discern if the other pots of marmalade around the Gryffindor table were a similarly less vibrant shade.

She pulled herself out of the memory as Blaise sat down beside her, sending a devilish look her way.

"Hermione," he stated in acknowledgement.  
"Blaise."

They resumed their work sans a reminder from Professor Snape, who was at his desk grading papers.

Hermione dared a fleeting glance at him as he was stooped over some second year's messy essay. His head hung down across his face, he was absorbed in his work.

_There is something so similar isn't there...something between us... we both... yearn for knowledge so. A sip from the well is not enough. Odin sacrificed his eye for wisdom... would I do the same? Would Severus?_

---

Leaving Potions, Blaise heard the deliberate padding of very careful footsteps. They followed him up the stairs from the dungeons, past the Great Hall, and stayed behind him as he climbed the winding staircase to the expansive library. He didn't bother turning around. He knew who it was.

"What do you want?" he sighed, turning to face his shadower.

"I could ask you the same thing."

"What are your plans for Hermione?"

"I'm not sure that's any of your business," drawled the boy facing him.

Blaise gave him a dirty look with his cold eyes. "I don't believe you'd stoop that low. Making her a scapegoat, yes, I can see that – but you wouldn't put her in mortal danger." Blaise's eye twitched unconvincingly.

"Look," Draco said more seriously, "I won't get her hurt, but you know you can't prevent me from at least putting her to my – ah – _advantage_."

"I will hold you to that."

"You know I respect you," Draco said, lowering his voice.

"And I understand... why you'll do what you'll do. But I still can't help thinking that maybe you're wrong. That this will be more dangerous than you think – and for such a stupid fucking reason! C'mon Draco, you don't -"

But he was cut off by a solid punch on the jaw that caused him to see stars as he reeled backwards.

"You know my reasons," hissed Draco, breathing heavily. "Don't' you _dare_ question them again."

---

The water ran hot over his shoulders, almost burning. He could see the droplets splash off his chest onto the grey stone of the shower, the steam rising off the floor and the walls, clouding the bathroom in a sensual white mist which caressed his body as if with invisible fingers as he stepped out of the shower.

_She'll be here soon. And again I'm asking myself why I'm doing this._ _But at the same time, does that really matter anymore?_

_I need her._

He grabbed his towel off the hook, drying his hair. The movements of the towel flicked the steam into wisps of white swirling about him - the hot vapor, the cold air. He wrapped the towel around his waist and stepped into his room to dress.

_I need to look good for her._

_Fuck, _he thought, _when was the last time I said that about a girl?_

He laughed at himself. It had been too long.

_All the same... why not?_

He selected some deep red casual robes that were in a deliciously soft fabric. He knew they looked good on him. But he didn't quite realize how much they brought out the fire banking deep in his eyes.

He had just finished dressing when he heard a confident rap on the door, and she walked in.

"Hi," she said, smiling. "About last night, I'm – I mean, I don't know -," she faltered.

Snape looked slightly concerned, and opened his mouth to say something but then closed it quickly. A shadow passed over his face, but so fleetingly that it was barely noticeable.

"It was dark, I think you slipped and fell," he said soothingly.

Hermione's eyebrows creased together. For the first time since they'd started these trysts, she felt as if she didn't trust him.

_Can someone steal your memories?_ She wondered impulsively, but shook the idea out of her head. That was impossible.

Snape had already crossed the room and poured her a drink. Without referencing the incident again, they began their evening.

---

_Who knows why people are coupled the way they are - strangely un-pairable characters thrown together tumultuously, two people enraptured, horribly misfit. And then one wonders why those who are not meant for each other stay together, bearing their sorrows like a badge of courage, lack of love their solace. It is a strange world._

Hermione was feeling philosophical after three fingers of firewhisky.


	8. Chapter 8

_**The thudding of her footsteps resonated in her ears, she was running past shadows and thorns welded onto the dark pillars hindering her journey. The intimidating shapes pushed away to let her pass, then closed ominously behind her until she reached the clearing.**_

_**It was there.**_

_**The Beast, panting on the soft moss. Black blood made a puddle on the ground where its jaws ravaged the underbrush. It bared its teeth in warning, struggling to get up from the spot where it lay.**_

_**She approached it, her wand held aloft. A bright light emanated from her, and the beast calmed its frantic struggles. Its black fur was matted down, its flanks damp with the sweat of pain.**_

_**She stepped up to it and knelt down, her eyes hard, her mouth quivering, robes billowed about her knees like the dark petals of a poisonous bloom.**_

_**The Beast raised its ugly head into her lap, where her fingers caressed its snout, looking deep into its eyes. She let a careless tear slip down onto its fur as she held it close, in a comforting embrace.**_

_**Suddenly, the Beast rose on its scarred haunches, coughing blood onto her with the effort. There was a hole in its side where something had pierced it deeply, and its face was disfigured by grimaces and snarls. But she did not back away. It waited, panting and coughing, testing her, then leaned forward and gently licked the blood off her tearstained cheeks.**_

_**She closed her eyes, allowing it this.**_

_**Then, pointing her ward up at its chest, she spoke.**_

_**"Avada Ked-," she began, but she found herself unable to finish the phrase as the Beast opened its jaws and devoured her.**_

---

When she dared open her eyes she was warm, and somewhere deep and soft. She could feel the animal's breathing. Laying very still, she realized where she actually was.

_Shit. I need to get back to my room before it gets any later or I might get caught._

Disentangling herself from the sheets and Severus' arm around her waist, she drew herself out of the bed.

The cold was biting. She was, after all, in the dungeons, and while it had been very cozy curled up in Severus' embrace under the thick sheets, the air outside themed was frigid. Her nude form covered in goose bumps, she lit her wand and groped around the floor for her clothes, which she hurriedly put on before slipping out of Snape's chambers and into the hall.

Whispering the password and slipping into the common room, she remembered her latest dream.

She could feel its jaws around her, her wand gripped in her hand, the stillborn words of destruction poised on her tongue.

_I've been having such strange dreams... such vivid dreams... _

_It's almost as if I'm seeing glimpses of something more real than Life. Only I know I am in the dreams, and I am me in the dreams,_ I_ saw the blood and heard those voices. _

She curled up under her warm sheets, snuggling down close and thinking about her new lover – or was she? It seemed that just as she had Snape's form focused in her mind, his image changed into Sirius'. Shivering, she fluffed off the phenomena and let her thoughts drift back to the dreams.

_Maybe they're just memories._

---

"Wake up, Hermione!" insisted the voice.

"Wha..." Hermione groaned sleepily.

_What the -?_

_Oh. It's Ron._

Hermione blearily opened her eyes.

"What's up with you? You're usually up and doing more homework by the time I'm awake," he commented.

"I'm coming, I'm coming..." she sighed, getting up from her warm bed and gathering her clothes. "I'll meet you at the table..."

She shuffled into the bathroom as Ron left.

_Sooooooo Coooooooold..._

She turned the faucet in the shower to hot and clambered clumsily into the tub. The hot water caroused over her form, waking and soothing her from a deep, troubled sleep.

Fifteen minutes later, she willed herself to move and turned off the water, dressing amongst the cloudy steam.

---

"Good morning guys," she said cheerfully, plopping down between Ron and Neville at the Gryffindor table.

"You seem quite chipper," commented Ginny, who was opposite her. "Finally finish all your homework for the next couple months?" she teased.

"Yeah, you weren't that upbeat when I woke you up this morning," said Ron in mock suspicion. "In fact, I think you gave me the bona fide 'glare of death' when you went to shower."

"Try transfiguring water to coffee," she replied, pouring milk on her oatmeal. "It works wonders."

"By the way Hermione," queried Ron, "You haven't been back in our room before midnight for the past three days." He paused to take a bite of toast with marmalade (perfectly orange, this morning.) "And don't tell me you were in the library either because I checked.

"I had detention," admitted Hermione, embarrassed. She took a sip of orange juice, trying to stay poised.

"Oh right," said Ron. "I forgot that bastard Snape gave you detention for the rest of the week. So what's he making you do, scrub out cauldrons by hand?"

"Snape gave _you_ detention?" Ginny asked, raising an eyebrow. "I thought it was always Neville or Harry he punishes. And aside from that, have you, Hermione, _ever_ in your career as a student gotten a detention before this?"

"Only once before," she replied. "And _that_ was all Harry and Ron's fault!" She pointed a fork full of sausage accusingly at her friends. Harry, who sill wasn't speaking to her, ignored the gesture. Instead, he gripped the letter in his hand all the harder.

Ron rolled his eyes and Ginny laughed.

_---_

The paper was slightly crumpled from being stuffed in Harry's pocket that morning, but it wasn't too much worse for the wear. He'd hidden it in his robes as soon as the mail had come, no one had noticed. They had been too engrossed in their conversation. He finally unfolded Sirius' letter and read it. It was short, but told him all he had asked.

**---**

It was never awkward between them. Here was Hermione Granger, prancing into her Potion Master's private chambers nonchalantly, met by a warm kiss and a hot cup of tea, conversation by the fire, followed by passionate love-making...

And none of it was awkward.

She had expected getting right down to business, more or less like the previous three detentions, when she stepped into the dungeons. But no, it wasn't so, nor should it have been so.

"Good evening," Severus said, looking up from his work and smiling. He came over to her and kissed her simply, on the cheek.

"Hi," Hermione replied, smiling brightly. She was led over to a cozy armchair and offered some tea, which left a distinct sweet favor on her tongue after the first sip.

"Thank you."  
"You're welcome."

Severus sat in the chair opposite her, and took a thoughtful sip of his beverage. "I have something for you," be said quietly, and handed her a rectangular package, wrapped in brown paper, that had been lying beside his chair. Her hands were illuminated in the firelight as she took it.

Unwrapping the paper, she discerned that the gift was a book. The wrapping trailed from her lap to the floor as she lifted the tome to the firelight, to read its title.

"Ancient Wizerding Mythology and Folklore -A Nascent Magic."

It was not an old book, rather, it bore a glossy hardback cover and the pages were rimmed in gold leaf. It was also very, very thick - and must have cost a considerable sum.

"Oh my goodness... thank you so much!" she exclaimed in astonishment, her joy transforming into a grin as she flipped through it. It was filled with all sorts of information about the beginnings of magic and how it related to Muggle mythology, how the two were really one and the same.

"I've always been interested in this sort of thing... But I've never seen a book of this size devoted to it."

"It's very new, it hasn't officially reached the shops yet," he said shredly. "The author is a friend... I've been helping him edit it actually, and he let me have a copy. Hot off the press. I'm glad you like it."

"Oh I do, it's beautiful." She turned to the title page.

_By Albus Dumbledore. Of course._

"Dumbledore wrote this?"

"He's one of the most knowledgeable wizards alive today. And he was very close with Nicholas Flamel, whose knowledge spanned the ages, so to speak."

"What ever happened to him? Is he still alive?" queried Hermione.

"Actually he his," responded Severus. "I'm not sure how much longer his elixir will last him, but I think he'll be around for at least two or three more years."

"It must have been amazing to live for so long and learn so many things... He must have seen the rise and fall of nations, the birth of modern society, the development of Muggle technology..."

Hermione tried to imagine living through something as primitive as the middle ages, and then experiencing the birth of the internet and space travel... but she couldn't quite imagine what it would be like.

"He has indeed seen all that, and more," Severus concurred. "I would like to speak with him before he dies. Dumbledore says he is a very interesting person."

"I would think so," said Hermione. "But to live as long as he has... and then die... Harry said Dumbledore described it as something like, 'sleep after a very long day."

_A very long day indeed. Sometimes I think our lives are too long as they are. I think, that mine has lasted longer than it should..._

"I wouldn't care to live that long. To leave all my friends behind. I think it would be somewhat isolated." Severus' voice contained a hint of bitterness.

"Do you feel isolated?"

"I suppose I do," he answered. "Most of my acquaintances are staff members... the others I do not care for.

"Do you have any family?" she asked.

"No. I am the last of the Snape line, thank God!" he said, smiling sourly as he drained the dregs of his tea.

Hermione wrapped her palm around her cup, staring into the amber liquid.

"My family was like Sirius' family. Pureblood. Dark Arts. And mostly dead."

"Oh," Hermione responded.

_How sad. To be the last in a long genealogical line... How very final._

"What about your family?" asked Severus.

"All Muggles. My parents are dentists, both only children like me, so I don't really have too much family."

"So we are sort of alike."

"Yes. Sometimes I feel more isolated than I like to," she admitted. "Harry and Ron are my best friends, but all the same, we're so different. They're boys, for one thing," she laughed. "And neither of them share my love of knowledge."

"That's too bad." Severus sighed. "But you're lucky to have two such loyal young men as your friends."

"Yes, I am."

"They care for you very much."

"They do."

She paused to take a sip of her drink, which had grown tepid. "Why do you give Harry such a hard time?" she asked gently.

"I have since repaid the debt I owed his father," Severus said quietly. "You know I hated James Potter."

Hermione nodded.

"He made my teenage years miserable. Sirius too. We don't get along."

He looked pensive and gloomy, the flickering tongues of flame licking at his dark hair.

"Sometimes I think Harry is James, and I take it out on him. Then I remember that James is dead... and that it's not Harry's fault. We don't get along, for many reasons... but I try not to be too harsh, these days."

"You always seem so bitter at the world."

"I am," he replied quietly, a smile flickering on the side of his mouth. But Hermione was staring into the flames of the fire and didn't notice.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

"Where's Harry?" asked Ginny, looking up from her books. Even though it was a Friday night, she had stayed up late finishing up all her homework so she could be free on the weekend.

_I've been hanging out with Hermione too much, _she mused. _Although actually . . . I haven't really hung out with her since the summer. She's been really busy these past weeks. Or maybe just elusive?_

Despite the fact that it _was_ a Friday night and _only_ 1:30 in the morning, the population of the Gryffindor common room had thinned out, leaving only three others besides Ginny - Seamus, Dean, and Neville, who was intently following the game of wizard's chess being played by the former two.

"I think he's gone to Ron and Hermione's," said Dean, without looking up.  
"Oh." She felt something nagging at her, though she wasn't sure what.

Fiddling with her quill, Ginny stared into the fire, appreciating its gentle flickering, her gaze reflected in its tender red flames.

Neville snuck a quick look at her, letting his eyes steal away from the board as Seamus took one of Dean's pawns with a triumphant, 'Ha!'

He took her in slowly, like one looking at a painting in a gallery, or watching the stars creep from the sky's velvet at dusk.

Despite having inherited her mother's height, Ginny's build was more aligned with that of her father's straightness than her mother's fuller figure, and like Ron, she had not escaped the thick red hair and freckles bestowed upon all who bore the Weasley name.

Neville had quietly admired her ever since last year, when they had shared the adventure in the Ministry of Magic along with Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Luna Lovegood. But even two years ago, he had been more of the short, round-faced, flaxen-haired boy he'd begun Hogwarts as, than the tall, stocky young man he was now.

His face was pleasant though toothy, and though he did not have a crush on Ginny (those feelings were reserved for someone else), he found she exuded a depth he longed to explore.

_But how in Merlin's name do you ask someone to be your friend?_

Neville, like Ginny, did not have a very best friend. In Ginny's case, it was her reserved nature that led her closest friends to be those she was already in close proximity with (Hermione, Ron, and Harry), and her not-so-close-friends to be fellow Gryffindors and fellow loners, such as the quirky and reclusive Luna, whom with she conversed on occasion. Neville's position as somewhat of an outsider (with the exception of when he would tack onto either Harry and Co. or Seamus and Dean, as had happened that evening), was simply because he was shy.

The tragedy that that befallen his parents had affected him more than he would ever know. In addition to having to deal with the biting inner pain, the bitterness and embarrassment that he sometimes felt, he had also been subjected to growing up under the strict eye of his grandmother. While she did love him very much, he had often found himself isolated from the bubbly and social childhood most young witches and wizards his age had experienced. For this reason, he sometimes also felt a warm affiliation with Harry, who likewise had been a lonely child.

It was due to this shyness ingrained in him that he and Ginny had only ever spoken a handful of times, only once or twice alone together. This part of his personality might have held him back at the moment his brain told his legs to move, except for the fact that the firelight had deepened the shadows on Ginny's pensive face, and scarcely before he knew it, Neville had risen and was sitting by her.

"What's wrong, Ginny?" he asked quietly.

She looked at him, tearing her eyes from the intoxicating flames.

"Not much." She sighed. "Just tired, I guess."

"Alright," said Neville, feeling slightly embarrassed. "I just -" he began. "Well, you looked worried and... well, like something was bothering you."

He gave her a nod, biting his lip, and stood back up.

"Well... g'night then."  
"Wait -"

She looked behind Neville to where a yawning Dean was following Seamus up to bed.

"Well, I am worried a bit," she admitted, focusing back to the boy in front of her. "About Hermione. She hasn't been quite herself lately, and I haven't had a good talk with her in ages."

"Do you want to go down and speak with her for a bit?" he asked quickly.

"I would if I could," said Ginny, shrugging her shoulders, "But it's way passed curfew. I'll have to do it later."

"But you want to go?"

"I would," she nodded.

"Alright, wait here," Neville said, practically grinning. "I'll be right back"

"What are you going off about?" Ginny asked, wrinkling her forehead so a lock of hair fell across her cheek.

Neville winked mischievously at her, his face suddenly looking as round as it had been when he was a first year.

"Harry isn't the only one with an invisibility cloak."

**---**

He read the letter, his eyes backing into his skull.

_My Father._

The dark vial he gripped in one hand.

_I will not become his puppet. I have too much to live for... I'm better than that, I'm smarter than that, and I am not like Him._ . . . _I would not do to my son what he has done to me.I am not like him._

He choked on the tears that belied his resolve, and moved to smash the vial on the ground. His robes clung to him as he shivered for a while with the idea of what he was about to do. He retreated to the corner of the classroom he had slipped inside.

_I'm sick of this. Fuck you. _Fuck. You.

**_He closed him eyes tightly, trying to block out his father's face, pushing him to the ground on his stomach, roughly tearing off his robes._** **_He was pressing him into the ground, moving over him heavily._**

_**"Get off, No, don't..."**_

**_His face pressed into the stone, the stone pressed into him, pressing into him._**

Disgusted, he sobbed out loud, mimicking the one other time he had broken down like this.

_Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you . . . Well he did, didn't he?_

Gasping, he pulled the stopper from the vial, the bitter smell filling him, his empty place where something had been brutally taken.

_**"You will obey me, boy."**_

_I will obey you._

He drank it down.

**_"Crucio." Lucius bore down on him while he was on the floor, pulling up his robes, down with his boxers. Draco could feel his father fumbling above him, but he could not move._**

_**And then the Horror. The sheer horror of knowing what was happening, unable to stop it, of flesh and blood in violation of flesh and blood.**_

_**He felt it, distantly. Like it was happening to someone else, and he was watching. But he could feel it, and he couldn't stop it...**_

The liquid gushed inside of him.

_Inside of me._

He fell to his hands and knees, it was eating him away.

_I will not become my father._

Groaning, animalistic noises came from his throat, followed by a trickle of blood.

_Did he ever love me?_

_No._

He clawed the floor with his hands, the pain writhing inside him.

_I am _not_ my father._

As if an epiphany had hit him, he jammed his hand in his mouth, fingers slipping roughly into his throat.

**---**

Ginny and Neville were securely under Neville's father's invisibility cloak, creeping slowly down the corridor. Neville had found the article the past summer, while rummaging in some trunks kept by his grandmother in her musty attic.

"I've wanted to try it out for ages," Neville had said as he showed it to Ginny in the common room, "But I was too nervous to roam about the school invisible by myself."

"I wouldn't want to either," said Ginny, feeling the fluidity of the fabric. "At least if we get caught we'll be in good company for the detention."

Neville hadn't stopped himself from smiling at her.

_It's nice talking with Ginny. She's quiet, like me. And she doesn't make me feel stupid or awkward._

They were winding their way along the hall by the door stairs leading to the fourth floor when they heard the sound of violent retching.

"What's that?" asked Ginny, looking about them.

"It sounds like someone's really sick."

They followed the noise down a couple doors to a Transfiguration classroom. Neville gently pushed open the door that was standing slightly ajar.

"Hello?" he called out softly.

"Lumos," whispered Ginny, a light emanating from the tip of her wand.

In the corner of the room, the shadows harbored the shape of a person. Hunched on hands and knees, the figure had just finished vomiting on the cold stone, shuddering with each succeeding gasp.

Ginny ran out from under the cloak to the convulsing figure.Neville followed, pointing his wand at the bloody mess.

"Scourgify."

Ginny lifted the edge of her robes to wipe the person's slimy chin, lifting the drooping head.

"Malfoy!" she exclaimed in surprise.

Neville took a step back, grapping Ginny's shoulder. He'd been taunted enough by the boy to be wary of his arrogant peer, but Draco's eyes had rolled back in his head, the whites unnaturally glassy, and his lips had turned an evil shade of green. Ginny picked up an empty vial on the floor, showing it to Neville.

"We have to get him to Madame Pomfrey," he admitted.

"Mobilicorpus," said Ginny in a hushed voice, Draco's flaccid form following her eerily out of the classroom while Neville closed the door behind them.

---

Madame Pomfrey answered the knock on her door with a stifled yawn and a disgruntled look. When she saw the two students' unconscious cargo, she quickly ushered them in. The green taint of his lips had spread in a web around his face, his breathing becoming increasingly shallow.

"What happened to him?" asked the nurse gruffly as Ginny let him down on a pristine white bed. She handed the elder witch the vial.

"We found this on the floor beside him. I think he threw a lot of it up, but it still seems to have got to him." She looked at the still form of the boy she loathed for his arrogance and mean-spirited words.

_I hope he's alright._

Madame Pomfrey gave the vial a sniff, waving it under her nose. She reeled back from the reek it gave off. Neville and Ginny recognized the bitter smell as being prevalent in the classroom where they had found Draco. She proceeded to hold the vial up to the light, reading a strange character set in relief on the opaque black glass.

"Where would he have gotten this?" she murmured. She looked both astonished and deadly serious, despite the pink curlers crowning her head.

"What is it?" Neville asked as the Mediwitch rushed over to a cabinet, frantically pulling off half a dozen bottles from the shelves.

"Basilisk venom," the older woman replied in a quavering voice.

_He tried to poison himself._

Ginny's mouth fell open, though she was not as shocked as she could have been. "I don't have a direct antidote for it, but these are for dragon venom and snake venom... they should do the trick, but there's no guarantee. If he gets worse we'll have to call Dumbledore."

She started spooning a bright blue liquid into Draco's gaping mouth, his breathing growing ever more laboured. Ginny was holding his head up.

"Neville, open the next bottle for me." He obliged, and Madame Pomfrey poured a thick red goo past Draco's lips.

_It looks like congealed blood._

Ginny pressed her lips together worriedly.

They all hovered over him expectantly for the next two hours, Madame Pomfrey administering some potion or other every couple minutes, having forgotten to shoo the students back to their rooms. Eventually, the gangrenous color faded from Draco's face and be began breathing normally. The trio watched on with trepidation.

After another hour Madame Pomfrey sighed. "There's nothing else we can do. He should be all better by tomorrow night or Sunday morning. I'm going back to bed." She raised an eyebrow at the pair. "You two should go to bed as well." Adding a meaningful look, she exited the infirmary.

Ginny yawned, shaking Neville's shoulder. His eyes had started to fall closed. "Let's go back to the tower," she said, getting up and laying Draco's head back down on the pillow.

Neville removed himself from his perch by the boy's feet.

"Why in Merlin's name would _he_ want to bump himself off?"

"I don't know..." replied Ginny, looking at Draco's sleeping form one last time. A piece of parchment sticking out of his robes caught her eye. Curious, she pulled it out and unfolded it.

"You coming?" asked Neville, his hand on the doorknob.

Ginny motioned him over, holding out the letter, her eyes wide. Neville skimmed the parchment. His pupils flickered from side to side as he read. His mouth opened in astonishment.

"Well that explains it."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Ginny lay in the soft quiet, the darkness of the girls' dorm. She was reading the letter over again in her head, still clutching it, committing to memory the words which had caused a boy to try and take his own life.

The paper was rough and it burned under her hand as she recited in her mind:

_Draco,_

_I am aware that for some time you have opposed my position concerning the Dark Lord. I have tried to persuade you to accept my views and the views of my Master, but, I take, with little effect. A New Age is upon us Draco, the second war has begun. We will emerge victorious._

_New Years is approaching, and He is making preparations that may be of concern to you. You know that I have asked you many times before to establish loyalty with the Dark Lord. You have refused. It was not wise, but you have another chance to change your mind. _

_I am writing you to advise that you claim the Dark Mark on New Years Eve. If you do, you will become part of His plan, and your future as a self-respecting Pureblood wizard will be ensured. He will guarantee your future once the Dark side has triumphed over the tainted masses._

_You will be eighteen past the New Year. Then I will have no responsibility over you, you know that. But I am telling you now, while you are still under my care, that if you refuse to join the Death Eaters, it will be to your disadvantage. _

_You see what I have enclosed for you with this letter. If you do not plan to accept the Dark Mark, use it. If you return to me over Christmas and still refuse the Dark Lord, he will do no less to you than the poison will. If you stay at Hogwarts and hide from me, I will kill you myself when we have won the war._

_Choose wisely, this time._

_- Lucius_

**---**

Blaise let himself wake up slowly, his eyes staying closed as his mind roused itself from a blissful slumber. The warm silk sheets of his bed had slid off his torso, the cooler air licking his nerves sensually. They were tugged farther off him by a movement to his right, his nipples and the hair on his chest pulled tight as goose bumps rose on his flesh.

"Good morning," said Pansy sleepily, as she turned to Blaise, her blonde curls falling in her face.

He grinned. "Good morning."

The door burst open and Pansy gave an embarrassed squeal as she sought to tug the sheets over her body. Blaise pulled himself up on one arm, observing his intruder with an amused look. "Top of the morning to you Professor," he grinned.

The Potions Master looked surly and simultaneously worried and rushed. "Draco's ill," he said sharply. His eyes looked pained. As Draco's Godfather, he had the double responsibility of playing teacher, and being the closest thing Draco had to a male family member who gave a shit over what happened to him. Although, that was mostly Narcissa's doing . . . though the young man was as yet unaware of that.

As soon as the words of Draco's state left Snape's lips, Blaise shot up into a sitting position and Pansy, with the sheets clutched to her chest, looked wide eyed at her Head of House.

"I think his father sent him a present," said Snape quietly. "Madame Pomfrey has given you two permission to visit him." He nodded at the two and left, shutting the door noiselessly behind him.

Blaise and Pansy looked at each other for a moment. "You don't think..." Pansy's voice trailed off.

"I wouldn't put it past him," said Blaise. "He hasn't been thinking straight lately." They both scrambled to dress, Pansy stumbling out the door with her blouse half buttoned, her robes akimbo and billowing behind her.

_Stupid fucking Lucius Malfoy and the rest of the damn Death Eaters. They all want to control out fucking lives._

"What do you think it was?" asked Pansy.

"A dagger, if it was anything like what my father sent me," guessed Blaise, mouth curling into a grim smile. As they walked down the hall, Pansy bit her lip as she picked up her pace in an effort to keep up with the dark-haired boy's long strides.

---

In the hospital wing, Draco lay delicately on a white cot, eyes screwed up in pain. Blaise sat down next to his friend, and Pansy knelt beside the head of the cot, both watching for any sign he was awake.

One could say that these three were the Slytherin equivalent of Gryffindor's 'Dream Team,' in an odd way. Loyalty came with Slytherin nature, but Pansy, Draco and Blaise were fiercely so, though they rarely showed it well. They had developed loyalty to each other as a necessity - their families were being torn asunder in the quake of Lord Voldemort's war for power. One or both of most all the Slytherins' parents were Death Eaters. But the younger generation was not as predisposed to worshipping the Dark Lord as their fathers were. They were knit together, as rebels. Too proud to admit they fought for the light, that they had disowned their parents long ago... and too good to allow themselves to be tools for the Dark.

"Is he asleep or unconscious?" asked Blaise.

"I'm not sure."

"Trying to sleep," answered the tired voice from the bed.

"Draco." Pansy squeezed his hand.

Blaise looked serious. "What did Lucius send you?" He looked his friend up and down." I don't see stab wounds, " he jested.

"Poison." Draco answered with a wan smirk.

Blaise crossed his arms, forehead wrinkled.

_Stupid prat. Going to kill himself because his bastard father wants his son to be a fucking evil old lecher just like him._

"Blaise." Pansy had seemed to read his thoughts, her eyes asking him not to yell at Draco, not now. "What happened?" she urged.

"I drank it," said Draco simply.

_I wanted to die._

His eyes opened and he focused on Pansy's piquant face.

"Then why aren't you dead?" Blaise still looked angry.

"I thought of you two at the last minute and I couldn't..."

He attempted a grin as his friends rolled their eyes.

"I shoved my finger down my throat and puked it all up," he admitted.

Pansy sniffled, touching his cheek lightly with her hand. "You old sap," she said, wiping a tear from her eye. She laughed through her tears, Draco squeezing her hand weakly. "I think it's you who's being emotional," said Blaise, the hint of a smile expressed by his mouth.

"That was so stupid of you Draco," Pansy managed to choke get out. "I'm glad you turned chicken."

"But why?" Blaise was staring at the floor. He gave Draco a bitter look. "Of course you wouldn't have done it for Lucius, that would have made him happy," he whispered, answering his own question. "You're not _that_ cowardly."

With a look of distain, Blaise got up and quickly left the room.

**---**

**_He pinched her toe playfully. "And this little piggy went 'wee wee wee' all the way home!" She laughed, tossing her hair back in amusement while he kissed each toe tenderly._**

_**"You have beautiful toes, Hermione."**_

**_"I do believe you have a little toe fetish!" she laughed._**

**_"I have a little Hermione fetish," he murmured, kissing up her leg._** **_She laughed again, drawing his head up to kiss him._**

**_"How did I ever get so lucky..."_** **_He gave her a reverent kiss, tasting her lips for their ripeness. She drew back._**

_**"I'm going to miss you," she said seriously, looking into his eyes. "All I really want to do is stay here with you."**_

_**"What about your studies?" He smirked. "If you stayed in this bed forever you'd die for want of knowledge!"**_

**_"I could do all my homework right here," she answered coyly, kissing his neck._** **_"I'll never leave you," she whispered._**

_**"Yes you will." He gave her a serious look. "I want you to live your life fully. Don't let an old geezer like me hold you back."**_

**_"Ha! Old geezer my ass." She let her hands roam down his body, enticing him, until he leaned back down to embrace her, hold her close._** **_"I'm pregnant." She said the words so softly he thought at first that he might have imagined them._**

_**"What did you say?" he asked, pressed against the pillow.**_

_**"I'm pregnant." Her voice was stronger for having said it once before.**_

**_He moved off of her, shock had encased him._** **_"But the contraceptive spells... I cast them... you cast them...every time." He was staring at her in disbelief._**

_**"But last week... In that airing cupboard..." she felt hurt.**_

_Shouldn't he be happy about this? We're going to have a child!_

_**"Oh." His voice was deadened.**_

**_"Do you love me?"_**

**_"Hermione, I love you very, very much...but you're . . . you're too young to have a baby."_**

_**"I'll be alright." She sounded cold and distant.**_

**_"What if you got rid of it?"_**

_I don't know, **she thought, but held her tongue. "Well you're not going to keep it are you? Whined her frantic lover. "You have to continue with your schooling and graduate..." He turned to her and shook her shoulders. "Hermione, you have too much of your life ahead of you to throw it away now."**_

_So if I have _our_ child I'll be throwing my life away?_

**_She stared at the ceiling, blinking rapidly. "I'm keeping it."_**

**_"Oh Hermione, please, that's not what I meant -"_** **_She turned to him, her voice bitter._**

_**"Don't you want it?"**_

_What am I supposed to say to that?_

_**"Hermione, I love you but-"**_

_**"I know."**_

**_"But you can't -"_**

**_She got up abruptly, throwing on her clothes and leaving the suddenly cold bedroom._**

"If you don't want the baby," she said coldly, "Then you don't want me."

This time when Hermione woke up the next morning, she couldn't recall the dream in any part. What stuck with her was the feeling that she had to, needed to remember it.

**---**

_I can't take this anymore._

The austere room was stifling him.

With a determined effort, Draco pulled himself out of the bed where he'd lain weakly for the past two days. His knees buckled slightly, refusing his weight.

_That was some evil stuff._

Draco ran his fingers through his matted platinum hair. Struggling to steady himself, he walked the length of the room slowly, staggering only once. The door was light-weight, but he leaned against it heavily, using his body to push it open. The thick door swung forward, slamming into someone on the other side.

"Fuck!" The door had, in fact, connected with a nose. A very freckled, now slightly bruised nose.

"Sorry," he said dryly to his victim. "You should really look where you're going."

The disgruntled image of Ginny Weasley didn't elicit a second thought from his mind.

"And you should be more quiet the next time you decide to snuff yourself."

The coolly delivered words hit Draco like a train. He blanched.

_Well I suppose I must have gotten to the health wing somehow... What, did I think I walked here by myself?_

"Oh." His voice betrayed that he had been taken off-guard.

"Yeah, 'oh,'" said Ginny. "I was just going to drop in and see how you were doing."

"All better," he replied casually.

"You still look weak." Ginny appraised him with her eyes. "I'd help you walk to your room but you might keel over again if one of your mates saw you with a _Gryffindor_."

"I don't give a damn if I'm seen with you and neither does anyone else," he replied, walking away as quickly as be could, cheeks burning behind their pallor.

_Who the fuck does she think she is?_

Ginny was fuming.

_He's so bloody stuck-up, but he's not getting away that easily, not in hell! He owes me a thank-you._

She caught up with his strides and stepped in front of him at the bottom of the stairs at the end of the hall. She opened her mouth to say, "A 'thanks-for-saving-my-life' might be nice!" but he spoke before she could.

"Thanks for taking me to Madame Pomfrey," he said quietly. "I would have died if you hadn't."

Ginny swallowed her words. "You're welcome."

_Did Malfoy just thank me? Of his own accord?_

"Here," said Ginny, holding out the letter she'd taken from Draco's robes. "I -" She exhaled.

_What am I supposed to say? That my curiosity got the better of me and I didn't actually come to see how he was doing but to return a stupid letter I stole from his robes the night he attempted suicide?_

He took one look at it and visibly stiffened. Snatching it from her hand, his eyes searched hers, his jaw taught with anger.

_Did she read it? Fuck, she thinks I'm a bloody coward then. My Father says 'jump' and I jump. Fuck!_

"Did you read it?"

They stood like two banisters on either said of the stair, the space between them mocking their show. Ginny nodded slowly. His demeanor had iced over and she felt mildly afraid.

"You had no right to," he spat out, storming away from her, the effort discernible by his labored breathing. He could not face her; look at her, because she knew.

_I _am_ a coward. Afraid of what a little girl thinks of me!_

Ginny took a moment before running after him and grabbing his arm. "I'm sorry." Her eyes said she meant it, her hand on his arm said it mattered, whether he forgave her or not. After a long pause, Draco inclined his heading recognition and continued down the hall more slowly than before.


	11. Chapter 11

Poking her head into the Great Hall, Ginny ascertained that both Ron and Harry were at the Gryffindor table, but Hermione was nowhere in sight.

_Perfect._

She darted back into the hallway and half walked, half ran to Hermione's room, eager to finally ask her how she was doing - it had been a week since she and Neville had gone on their midnight-mission, her desire to talk with Hermione abandoned in favor of musing Malfoy's actions.

Ginny paused in front of the common-room door and recited the password, closing the door behind her with a courteous amount of noise, indirectly informing Hermione of her presence.

Strangely, Hermione didn't answer to the resounding thud, nor to Ginny's voice when she called Hermione's name.

_How odd. It's past nine... she should be up by now._

Ginny went to Hermione's door and rapped tentatively on it. "Hermione?"

She pushed the door open. Hermione's room was unusually tidy, even for the 'Queen of Organization,' as she had been dubbed by the Gryffindor girls as a first year.

Ginny observed the room. The feature that stuck out the most was the bed, which had been made neatly. Too neatly.

_It doesn't look like it's been slept in at all..._

She ventured further into the room, feeling the side of the unwrinkled bed with her fingertips. The outside door closed gently, its gentle creaking making it obvious that someone had entered who wanted to remain unnoticed by any still-sleeping occupants.

Ginny went back into the common room just in time to see Hermione, her hair in disarray, tiptoeing across the floor.

"What in hell's bells are you doing?" asked Ginny, her hands on her hips. Hermione stopped abruptly, taking in the stern, red-haired figure before her.

_She looks a bit like her Mum right there..._

"Well?"

Ginny walked up to her, arranging her friend's hair. "My goodness, where have you been? Have you slept at all?" Ginny sounded worried.

"Yeah, I'm fine..." Hermione replied.

"I haven't talked to you properly for ages," said Ginny, hugging her friend. "And don't tell me nothing's been going on, because Ron says you keep coming in later and later, and it doesn't look like you've slept in your own bed for days!"

"I haven't," sighed Hermione.

"So where have you been?"

Hermione took a deep breath. "I'm having an affair with a teacher."

Ginny's eyes widened. "Sirius was one thing, but a teacher?"

Hermione's head jerked up.

_When did I tell her about Sirius? I never did! Or did I?_

"Who is it?" asked Ginny quietly.

Hermione chewed on her lip again. "Snape."

Both Ginny's eyebrows shot up in utter surprise, and just a little bit in disgust.

Hermione stifled a smile.

"Snape?"

"Yeah."

"Are you just trying to get back at Sirius?"

_What _is _she going on about?_

Hermione's face looked troubled. "No -"

Hermione looked up quizzically at Ginny, who seemed equally confused. "When did I tell you about Sirius?"

"Oh, way back towards the end of June. You said you... well, that you loved him, remember?"

Her brows furrowed as Hermione's focus shifted inward. _When _did_ I tell her I fancied Sirius? I guess it must have been that long ago, though I can't seem to remember... At the end of June . . . well that was before anything happened!_

"We were washing the dishes and Sirius asked if he could help, remember?" said Ginny slowly. "He winked at you... and you blushed and I asked you what it was about... and you told me everything."

"I honestly can't remember." Hermione shrugged her shoulders, trying to fluff it off. But the feeling of panic was gnawing at her.

"Oh." Ginny sighed. "Alright, well I hope you've been using contraceptive spells?"

The other girl nodded. "Every time."

**---**

It was the first Quiddich game of the year, Ravenclaw vs. Gryffindor. Harry had made a spectacular save, catching the snitch in a nosedive with the Ravenclaw seeker. It had won Gryffindor the game, though they had been lagging behind on points. All in all, it had been an exhaustingly long day, and dusk had fallen on the pitch where Harry lingered, sitting back in the damp grass. He didn't feel like celebrating - he just wasn't in the mood. Sirius kept sifting to the forefront of his mind- Harry hadn't heard from him since the letter he'd sent about Hermione.

---

The warm water opened its mouth and swallowed Luna whole, tickling her cool flesh, licking away the stress of the school day. She sighed inwardly, letting the water pleasure her.

Letting go of the edge of the marble bath, she slipped further into the water, coming to rest on the stone seat submerged in the water. Her arms she rested on the ledge beside her.

The steam caressed her face, the room obscured in its loving mist. Luna let her legs drift apart and her mouth relax as the water was allowed between her thighs.

The heat surged around her, melting away the biting air. It surrounded her, inside her, the warmth moving below her belly.

Her hand followed it, moving over her chest, flicking her nipples. Her fingers followed the outline of the breasts, tracing them under the water in slow spirals.

They crept downwards, her nails raking her stomach every so gently, pulling the heat with it. Leaning her head on the edge of the bath, her hair billowed around her like a nebula as she slipped to the edge of the seat, her feet on the sides of the submerged pool.

Her hand moved over her hips, teasing herself.

The water around her splashed over the sides of the tub, beads of perspiration on her nose and upper lip as time passed, but finally she let her arm relax. Luna leaned back sensually in the later, breathing deeply and concentrating on the pleasing throb she felt in her sex, content with herself and her solitude.

**---**

The cold radiated from the walls. It numbed Ron's feet, which poked out of his bed as he lay very, very still. He listened for her voice whisper the password, for the door to creak open, for her to shuffle into the next room, for her to close the door.

_This is Wednesday. Hermione hasn't come back to the room at a decent hour since the week before last._

Ron's face tightened in meditation.

_What the fuck is she up to?_

Resignedly, he threw off the covers and left his haven, stepping silently to her door. Hand poised to knock, he stopped, when he heard her... talking in her sleep.

He pressed his ear close to the door.

"No, really, I'm fine, I don't want to talk about it. We just got in a row, that's all." He heard her toss around fitfully. Something fell off her bedside table with a clatter. He stepped back. After a minute or two of silence, he pressed his ear back to the cool wood.

"No, I'm fine, I don't want to talk about it. I just never want to see him again! Look, don't tell anyone, don't... I wish I could forget it all."

Her voice rang of desperation. It made turmoil auditory.

Eyes wide, Ron listened harder. He could hear her crying.

_Is she asleep or awake?_

He opened the door and moved softly to the shadow that was her bed. Her eyes were closed lightly and her voice sounded strangely lucid.

"I would do anything, anything to forget."

Horrified, Ron stepped backwards and went quickly back into his room, shutting the door firmly behind him and pressing it closed, as if someone was trying to get in.

_It's like she was awake... or in some kind of trance._

His heart was racing.

**---**

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	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

Sirius had tried to forget that last night with Hermione.

_I wonder how she's doing._

His heart had been heavy with the thought of her these past weeks...

_Dear Harry,_

_How are you? I hope school is treating you alright! Grimmauld Place is as dusty as ever, but I'm researching some spells in the old library here - I think the Order will find them quite handy._

_I hear you won the game against Ravenclaw, well done!_

_Take care and give my best to Ron and Hermione. I hope things are well with them._

_Love, Sirius_

He didn't dare write to Hermione, not after what Harry had told him about her goings-on with Snape.

Folding the paper, Sirius set it on the coffee table where he'd be sure to post it in the morning, though in fact, it gathered dust there for a week before being sent on its way.

---

The owlery smelled musty, of dried owl droppings and damp straw. It was colder here than elsewhere in the castle, though not as dank as the dungeons.

The letter Hermione was carrying was short, a note telling Severus that she had too much homework to see him this evening.

_Pity I have that charms essay due tomorrow or I could go..._

She sighed as she tied the note to the leg of one of the school owls and turned to leave.

"Malfoy."

Draco stood in the doorway, a piece of parchment in his own hand. He inclined his head in recognition of her, and they stood watching each other for a couple seconds before Draco broke the silence.

"Hello, Mudblood."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Well don't you blow hot and cold, Sir Slytherin." She scoffed at the look that darkened his face and walked past him.

Draco turned around and grabbed her by the shoulder roughly. "I don't care what you think of me," he hissed, holding her eyes with his gaze. "I don't care who you are. Or what you are."

Hermione pulled back, horrified, crashing into a shelf holding a half dozen sleeping owls. They hooted indignantly and ruffled their feathers, as smirked at Draco, a smirk worthy of a Slytherin, her eyes remaining cold.

"You wouldn't?" she asked innocently. "Well then so much the worse for you, so much the better for me." With that, she stalked past him, her robes billowing around her legs.

---

Hermione had already finished transfiguring her lamp into a goose, which was now honking irritably as it wandered about the room. Professor McGonagall was flitting from student to student, helping where she was needed. Right now, that was with Ron, whose lamp had grown webbed feet, and was tottering about his desk.

_A walking lamp... I wonder if Ron could get it patented as a traveling companion._

She laughed to herself, but the memory of her run-in with Malfoy in the owlery that morning quickly sobered her. She looked about the room idly. Having already completed the assignment and having slept only a couple hours the night before, Hermione let her eyes close for a moment.

_I'm so tired..._

**_A huge white spider crept towards her in the darkness, the only light emanating eerily off its glowing flesh. It moved towards her noiselessly. Hermione could feel its intent, knew it wanted to hurt her... She froze in terror as it came close enough for her to discern the albino hairs that covered its body like barbed wires. Eight cold eyes, cold like they had been hollowed from ice... took her in. She flinched at its hunger. Taking a step backward, Hermione's breathing became labored with fear. The spider raised its fang-tipped mandibles and lunged at her... _**

_**She could not see, the pain was overwhelming, there was a raging fire behind her eyes, warm blood coursing down her body... She could feel the pressure of the spider's bite in her throat, hear its whispering, venomous in her ringing ears...**_

_...whispering?_

**_The spider let go its hold, her blood tarnishing its white form.. She stood there in shock looking at the monster, the warmth of her blood lost to the surrounding air. She had no breath to breathe, no heart to live... the spider had tasted her, eaten her, and she was empty, dead, hopeless... Her shell collapsed to the floor as the spider poised himself over her, ready to strike again, to plunge its whips into her flesh and take hostage her soul..._**

But the void lifted suddenly, giving way to blinding light.

Professor McGonagall, Harry and Ron, were stooped over her, looking horribly worried.

_Am I on the floor?_

She tried to sit up, but pain shot through her head.

"Shh... stay there..." said Professor McGonagall, pressing her back down.

"What... what..."

Hermione's mind felt fuzzy, the way her teeth felt in the morning if she'd fallen asleep without brushing them. People around her were speaking excitedly, and she could feel that she was being levitated...

_Isn't it supposed to be Harry who has visions and falls out of his seat?_

Minutes later, as she was laid down on a bed, she tuned back into the surrounding conversation.

"Poppy, what's wrong with her?"

Something thick was being spooned into her mouth.

"I'm not sure," the other woman answered.

"She fell off her chair, like she was a rag doll." Ron's voice was agitated.

"It was like when I've had visions about Voldemort," said Harry. "Screaming and then fainting like that."

Hermione drifted away again, floating under the lingering images of her encounter with the spider. She felt again the strange trepidation she'd felt several other mornings when she was trying to remember her dreams... In desperation, she tried opening her eyes gingerly. They felt heavy and as if they were covered with sand.

"What happened dear?" Professor McGonagall was tucking stray hairs behind Hermione's ears.

"I...thought I was being attacked..." she sarted. "A spider...a big, white spider..." Ron's face belied his revulsion at the mention of a spider. Hermione tried to speak again, but her tongue was thick in her throat and it was hard to talk. She closed her eyes again, her breathing shallow.

_My head..._

Hermione's eyes fluttered, closed, and she sank into an exhausted sleep.

"The sleeping potion kicked in," said Madame Pomfrey. She looked at the boys. "You two should get to your next class." They nodded, both looking grim and worried.

"I need to talk to you." Professor McGonagall pursed her lips. The door shut behind the boys, and the teacher sighed.

"What could have provoked this, Minerva?"

"I think it was just a dream, Poppy."

Madame Pomfrey raised an eyebrow. "She shows physical signs of having had a vision... but how rare! I would scarcely believe it!"

"It could also have been insignificant!" retorted the other woman.

"I don't know, Minerva... " Madame Pomfrey sighed, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes. "I don't know much about Divination, but if she has been having more of these strange dreams...or visions..."

"Well talking to Sibyl won't help," scoffed the Transfiguration Professor, fingering a bottle by Hermione's bed.

Madame Pomfrey shook her head. "I don't know about that. Dumbledore seems to have faith in her."

"Hmph."

"Although she did leave Sibyl's class in the first place because she thought it was nonsense," smiled the Mediwitch.

"Well I'm _very_ skeptical."

**---**

The cool autumnal sunlight was streaming through the windows. Hermione sat up in bed, sipping spoonfuls of soup, oblivious to what she was doing in the hospital wing.

_I must have fallen asleep in class and hit my head._

She remained undistressed by the fact that she did not know what had happened to her. Hermione was too level-headed and too experienced to get panicky simply because her mind had locked a few of its doors.

_Besides, I've felt like this before... All I have to do is stay calm._

The door opened quietly at the far end of the room. Hermione looked up from her meal as her Transfiguration Professor came towards her.

"How are you doing, dear?"

"Much better." Hermione smiled, setting down her soup. "Did I fall asleep in class?" she asked worriedly.

Her teacher laughed. "I don't exactly know." She gave Hermione a searching look. "Have you ever felt like that before?"

Hermione's eyes flashed upwards. The truth was on the tip of her tongue, but something held her back. "No, Professor," she replied mildly. "I think . . . well, perhaps I just haven't been getting enough sleep."

"Maybe," said her Professor, seeming almost unconvinced. "Well I'll leave you to your rest," she said, moving towards the door. "But if you remember anything. Anything at all," she stressed. "Feel free to come see me in my office."

Hermione managed a nod, and with a dizzy sigh, she leaned back and let sleep claim her.

---

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	13. Chapter 13

_Father,_

_I accept your terms. But I will not become one of _you._ Your failures have taught me well, dear father, and though the Dark Lord may have postponed your sentences until he is less preoccupied, I have no Fear that you will get no more or less than you deserve, whoever administers the consequences. Perhaps next time you will not be so lucky in escaping imprisonment in Azkaban – or perhaps you would prefer the haven it offers? No matter. _

_In any case, I thought you should be aware that you will be a grandfather before the summer solstice. She is not pureblood, _unfortunately_. Perhaps a little slip on my part. If you go ahead and disown me, I would have expected no less from you and as I have no designs on the Malfoy inheritance there is only one thing I ask. Either do what you have promised or leave me alone!_

_In all earnest,_

_your Son._

---

The morning light was hazy as it filtered through Grimmauld Place's ancient windows, making it seem as though the entire atmosphere was made of a suffocating, dusty fog. A piece of parchment lay on the ancient dining table, drawing a pair of dark eyes that kept fighting the urge to open it.

Sirius sighed, laid down his burnt toast, and picked up the letter Harry had sent him.

_Sirius -_

_Gryffindor is well on its way to winning the Quiddich Cup, I just hope I don't fall short as team captain. And schoolwork sure is piling up... I think Hermione's the only one who's staying on top of it. _

_But I am worried about her again. She's been admitted to the infirmary, and we don't quite know why... It's quite a mystery actually. She fainted in Transfiguration and she hasn't been looking well lately. Anyway, we're not sure how long she'll be in the Hospital Wing, but Ron and I are going to visit her as soon as I'm done writing this. _

_Love, Harry_

Sirius set the letter down beside his coffee, his usually lively face now ashen, fearing the worst. Rising from the table, he aborted his breakfast and walked feebly up the stairs to the library. There, he sat down in a large, musty chair, and picked up the thick tome he had been reading, desperate to take his mind off Harry's words.

The minutes slipped by, then the hours. Sirius did not feel the pangs of hunger, neglected the stiffness of his back. If he had all the time in the world, he would have stayed there, reading mindlessly, toiling onwards, anything to keep his thoughts from staying back to the inevitable: Hermione.

If he had all the time in the world, he would spend it thinking about her.

**---**

Hermione had spent a second night in the infirmary. More of Madame Pomfrey's potion for Dreamless Sleep had made her doze straight through to Monday morning. Sighing, she abandoned sleep and rose to a sitting position up against the headboard. She reached over to the bedside table for the glass of water she had perched there, but her hand fumbled around in the semi-darkness of the early morning without finding it.

Exasperated she leaned back and thought about the time turner, envisioning its form before her eyes.

_The time turner, the time turner . . . How in Merlin's name did it end up in my coat pocket? Just like in my dream, it was there. Did _I_ do it by sheer mental force, like how Harry retrieved the Sorcerer's stone from the Mirror of Erised? But that seems too bizarre to even consider! There must surely be some strong magic behind this, all of this. Why am I seeing things? Am I going completely insane? I'm almost afraid to sleep without a potion. I'm afraid . . . of what I might see. The dreams are so real, and when I do remember them, it's almost like something that happened yesterday, or last week! I can remember the smells, how things felt or sounded – not like your average dream where it seems as if something quite beyond you is the catalyst, as if fate propels the actions. Whereas – I feel quite lucid in what I've been experiencing. Even so, I feel so out-of-control of the situation. I don't know what to expect from my own mind anymore!_

Clenching her fists in frustration, she threw back the bed-sheets and tiptoed across the infirmary and out the door. Peeking around each corner, she finally made it back to her bedroom and pulled a wool blanket around her shoulders, groping in the semi-darkness for her Muggle coat. Fingers sensing the felted fabric, she delved into its pocket, pulling out again the flat red box. Her fingers shook as she opened it, not wanting to believe that it was really there – but it was. Nestled across a bed of cotton, the time turner lay innocently shimmering. Hermione reached for the delicate chain and pulled it out of the box. It was larger than the one she'd had for classes her third year, and had - she counted, squinting – twenty four tiny notches in between each of the thirty large notches every centimeter around the circumference of the device. Her mind worked quickly, doing the math.

_Twenty four for each one notch and thirty of those is a whole cycle, then – _

Shocked, she realized the power of what she held in her cold little palm.

_This time turner doesn't just do hours, it does days . . . and months . . . and therefore – years! _

It was beautiful and horrifying, to hold so much power in her own hand. The Lunar time-turner which followed moon-cycles, not paths from day-to-night. A time turner that gave the holder power, in retrospect, to change truly significant events . . .

---

By the time the sun had risen that morning, Hermione had already decided what she needed to do. Moving her frozen muscles from the cramped position in an armchair that she had maintained for the last several hours, she dressed. It was hard to go through the day without jumping at everything that took her by surprise, whether that was Ron calling her name or Professor Flitwick handing her back a paper while her mind was other places. She even jumped when Ginny waved hello to her in the hall. It was hard _not_ to be nervous – the cold chain of the time turner was wrapped three times around her neck and its large body lay across her chest.

**---**

The sparkling early-Autumn sunlight stretched through the open window, but did not quite touch Hermione as she dashed up a flight of stairs. After her last class, Arithmancy.

_My next-to-last class, _she reminded herself.

After waiting for the hall to empty, she crept into an empty classroom. Taking the time turner in her hands, she carefully rotated the device exactly one, tiny notch. The once-so-familiar feeling of time revolving backwards surrounded her, slowed, and then stopped, leaving Hermione mildly nauseated.

She wrinkled her nose and, tucking the chain back under her robes, walked out of the room up the wooden ladder to where she knew Professor Trelawney held her advanced Divination class.

The old classroom was just the same as Hermione had remembered it: stuffed with fluffy armchairs and padded poufs, teacups lining the shelves, and incense stifling the air. Hermione pulled herself up the ladder into the room slowly, curious to see who was actually _taking_ such a class.

Luna Lovegood, she had somehow expected to be there, even though she was only a sixth year. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil were also present, curled up in identical pink armchairs. There was also a trio of Ravenclaw girls, a boy from Hufflepuff...

_...and Blaise Zabini?_

The entire class consisted of only eight students.

_A Slytherin taking advanced Divination. How come that seems so odd to me?_

She sat down at the closest table, meaning that it was also the farthest away from the front of the classroom. Hermione was did not want to be the center of Professor Trelawney's attention, or preferably, even noticed by the teacher until the end of the class... Though with eight students, that probably wouldn't be the case. The table she had chosen, closest to the door and situated by a breezy window, also happened to be the one occupied by Blaise and Luna. Blaise gave her a nod in recognition, which she returned hesitantly, and Luna waved a dreamy 'hello.'

A couple minutes passed without conversation before Professor Trelawney floated into the room, her bird-like frame draped with chiffon and beads.

"Ahhh..." she said, rubbing her temples with red-tipped fingertips, "Our new student... I knew exactly what the spirits meant when they told me that one who was lost would return to me today."

She flitted gracefully over to Hermione and clasped her hand.

"My dear child, what brings you back to me on this special day?"

"Er..." Hermione looked around at her classmates. "I actually just wanted to ask you a few questions about . . ." she blushed fiercely, ". . . dreams."

"I did See the other night that a student might be having Visions..." said Professor Trelawney.

Parvati and Lavender gasped, perched on the edge of their seats to better hear the conversation. The teacher now had her eyes closed, and was gripping Hermione's hand quite tightly.

"Tell me about them, my child!"

At this point, Professor Trelawney's face was only a couple inches from Hermione's, and she could smell the strong scent of firewhiskey on her instructor's breath.

_Lingering effects of Umbridge's reign?_

Dissapointed by Hermione's silence, she continued, "We must all loosen ourselves from the binding ropes of the physical!" declared the Professor, drifting to the front of the room. "Today, we will begin our section on dream interpretation... so marvelously introduced by the lovely -," her hand waved absent-mindedly in Hermione's direction, - She."

Hermione made a face and the Ravenclaw posse laughed. "Isn't she batty?" said Luna dreamily.

"Quite," said Blaise, not looking up from hastily scribbling what looked like a Transfiguration essay.

"Comp_lete_ly batty." Luna was staring fondly at the teacher... if one could call it staring as her eyes were quite unfocused.

Hermione shook her head and pulled out her quill and a fresh piece of parchment.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black...

**---**

When the class ended, Hermione gathered her books quickly and was the first out the door.

_What a bloody waste of time, I didn't learn a thing,_ she grumbled in her mind, promptly doing away with the idea of continuing to audit Trelawney's classes.

"Hermione."

The voice tasted her name; the syllables toyed with on a feminine tongue. Hermione turned around to see who had called her.

_Luna._

She really didn't want to speak to the girl, without quite knowing why. It might have been the fact that she was an odd duck... or that Hermione was just really, really hungry and wanted nothing more than to go eat lunch.

"Yes?" She paused impatiently and waited for the blonde to catch up. Luna skipped down the stairs, grinning broadly at the older girl. She looked Hermione up and down, hands clasped underneath her chin with joy.

"Hello," she said breathlessly. "I just wanted to be the first to congratulate you."

She gave Hermione a beaming grin and then ran off down the hall, giggling.

Hermione watched the other girl skip away from her, confused.

"Congratulate me for what?"

But Luna had already turned the corner and was gone.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

That evening, Draco tried fitfully to sleep, but his father's voice kept piercing his mind nauseatingly.

_**"You are weak, to show affection for such a low creature."**_

Reading his letter had already brought back the feelings of humiliation and degradation that he had managed to suppress after a summer of silence... The same feelings of being inferior, of being 'dirty,' that had been cultured in him throughout his childhood, but culminated horrifically after his Father's failure at the Ministry. The power his father had lost... The power his father had taken from him...

A fever seizing Draco's mind. All he could see before him was his father... He wanted to hurt him.

_**He had been young. Eight or nine. Even then, he could sense his father's warped perception of reality, and shied away from him in favor of his mother. Lucius beat both of them, but he was their master, and they took his pain wordlessly. Draco had long been used to the Cruciatus curse by the time his father came home one evening from a clandestine Death Eater meeting, boasting about the way he had tortured and murdered some poor witch...**_

_**As soon as Draco heard his father open the door, he quickly pushed his pet cat off his lap. His nameless cat, because once Draco gave him a name, he knew he would love it too much. And in Malfoy Manor, loving anything would only get you hurt.**_

_**"Don't you want to do that someday, boy? Hear someone's screams and know that you are the cause of their pain? Know that you control their fear, their anguish?" Lucius laughed coarsely. "I will teach you to rip off a woman's clothes slowly...so that she knows your intent. I will teach you to bite her neck like a ripe white fruit, and plunder from her body its only worth."**_

_**He strode towards his son, smirking.**_

_**Draco said nothing. **_

_**"Answer me, boy!"**_

_**He was not scared. He had elicited the wrath of his father many times before, and he was not afraid of pain. **_

_**Draco felt carefully beside him and let his fingertips discretely brush his cat's tail, all the while watching his father warily.**_

_**Lucius rushed over to where his son was frozen and pulled the cat into the air, eyeing it with a smug disdain.**_

_**"You are weak, to show affection for such a low creature."**_

_**Draco held out his hands to grasp the cat away, "Father, set him down..." His voice shook. Now he was afraid. He could not protect his mother, those many, many times... he could not protect the girls he heard behind the locked doors, the ones who could not scream any longer, but surely... surely he could protect this small creature? **_

_**"Father, please..." Draco rose, arms stretched out. He knew what his father would do.**_

_**"You disgust me." Lucius threw the cat hard against the wall beside him, without even turning his head. The poor tomcat lay still where it hit the floor, a pathetic dribble of blood flowing from its skull.**_

_**Crying angrily, Draco ran towards his pet, but his father caught him around the waist and threw him back to the floor.**_

_**"You will understand someday boy... what it means to be a man... You will be strong, like me... and serve the Dark Lord... Your Master... for THIS is your inheritance." Lucius' breathing was ragged, his eyes wild, as he pulled back the sleeve of his robe and showed his son the Dark Mark.**_

_**"Isn't it beautiful..."**_

_**"I don't want it!" yelled Draco, running to the wad of fur that lay slumped by the wall, petting it vigorously, as if willing it to come back to life. Turning, he ran sobbing into his father's arms, beating him with child's fists.**_

"_**Crucio!"**_

The memory ended there, for when Draco had awoken, he was shivering in shock and had to work his mind hard to remember much of anything.

**---**

There were other memories though, worse memories. Like when he had returned from school last semester, his father humiliated from his failure at the Ministry.

_**The older man was quiet, but his eyes shone with a sadistic fire. He grabbed his son's wrist and pulled him down the hall.**_

**_"You WILL obey me. Respect me... I am your fucking Father! You will obey me..."_**

_**Lucius stopped in front of a door, the calm on his face more intimidating than that of any prior madness... "I am your Master. You will remember that."**_

_**Draco was flung into a bedroom, he didn't remember which one... The Malfoy's mansion was so huge it could have been one of any couple hundred. He hated that house. And every room in that house that was suspect as being the room that housed his misery that night - his humiliation, his horror...**_

_**What started out as a salvo of curses mutated that night, into a fight for power and superiority that he was doomed to lose.**_

_**When Draco finally regained consciousness and left that room, he was broken.**_

---

Firelight danced around the walls to singe the corners of the room. Snape sat in front of the fire in a tall, stately armchair, letting his coal-black eyes fuel the flames. He tucked back a strand of hair behind his ear, and reached out a hand to touch the ruby tongues... He pursed his lips into an acrid smile and retracted his hand from the fire's scorching womb.

He often sat like this. Thinking... letting his thoughts flit from wall to wall with the flames... Hermione was foremost on his mind tonight, as the embers crackled, the fire dimmed. She gave him what he needed - a taste of vitality, to remind him of the fire, to remind him that he was daring it to touch him, daring his skin to feel the biting breath of the flames... Snape batted the air with one slim-fingered hand. He was forgetting he had a purpose with her. It would not do to forget that.

Decades of bitter thoughts - the first which had ever passed through his bright intellect - had left a film around him, a fire-proof shell.

_And what if I do not carry through with the plan?_

The embers crackled. A log rolled over. The fire dimmed.

Severus Snape, born in a dingy apartment, by firelight.

Severus Snape, swattled in blankets dirtied with ashes.

Severus Snape, who read his Hogwarts letter in the sanctuary of a cold hearth, one morning...

Severus Snape, who chose to become a Death Eater when his self-inflicted burns were not enough, and he craved a hotter fire, a more intense flame, with to play...

Severus Snape, who was branded by its bright ray!

Severus Snape, who reverted to the Light under the cover of darkness!

Severus Snape, who would be rediscovered in the fire!

The embers crackled. The wood crumbled. The sparks jumped up. The fire dimmed. They flew into his eyes and lodged there. He inhaled, thinking.

_I have to do it soon, then._

Severus Snape. It was almost onomatopoetic, considering the man. Severed. Snarky. How Dumbledore had laughed one night, when a superstitious Auror had commented that Snape was destined to create discord within the Light. 'Sever us.'

_How pathetic._

The embers crackled, the ashes rolled over the fading licks of flame. The shadows grew as the fire dimmed. He remembered the night he decided to turn himself in to Dumbledore and become a spy. Running through the darkness with the knowledge of what he could do as a supporter of the Dark Lord. He could taste the fire on his tongue, hear its roar in his ears, the all-consuming, screaming flames...

The embers crackled. They were all that was left.

_And it wasn't enough._

Severus Snape sat in the darkness, fumbling around his body for his wand. To re-kindle the fire.

---

Harry and Ron were perched in chairs by the hearth, absorbed in a game of wizard's chess, when Hermione ran into the room, slamming the door behind her.

"Hermione!"

Harry got up and made to leave, but Ron put a hand on his shoulder. She bit her lip nervously and felt her stomach fall to the soles of her feet.

Ron broke into a fit of laughter. "Harry's been telling me the oddest things, Hermione. He says you – and that greasy bastard – Snape, I mean – that you're having an affair with him!" He snorted. "I didn't even want to _hear _Harry joke about you shagging him!" He laughed again, but it was cold and artificial, quickly dying out as he realized that the anger on his two friends' faces were quite in earnest.

Hermione fumed. "What makes you think right off that I'm shagging him?" she demanded of Harry.

"Well you are, aren't you?" he retorted, standing up to face her.

"I can tell as much from your face," said Ron unbelievingly when she didn't answer Harry. "I'm not dim you know. You like to think I'm stupid. It's easier for you, isn't it? But I'm not." He started to yell. "I'm a fucking human just like you Hermione! So are you fucking him or not, because you sure as hell are fucking everyone else."

His face was red with passion, his eyes glittering with anger. Hermione stood there, shivering with shock at the reactions of her two best friends.

"Yes," she gasped, slowly trying to regulate her breathing.

"How could you?" hissed Ron. "He gives all of us hell, and _you_... you give him your body?"

"It's not like that!" she yelled, looking up. "We read together sometimes. Or have tea... and talk about books. And... things like that..." She was suddenly aware of how stupid her words sounded.

Ron's eyes appraised her coldly. "Don't fool yourself Hermione. Not everyone cares how smart you are." He paused to scrub at his eye with a tremulous hand. "You are rather pretty, you know. I bet not many other boys would want to fuck over scones and sonnets. Maybe that's the way Snape likes it, but he just wants a good young fuck from a student stupid enough to humor him." He looked at Hermione's quivering form." Who'd have thought that would be you."

Ron's scathing words cut Hermione to the marrow. She could feel her blood slow, pain shoot within herself... She opened her mouth, but her words would not come into the world. She blinked, but her tears refused to flow. It was harsh out there. They did not want to be born into this.

Harry awoke from his stupor at Ron's last comments.

_It's too much now._

"Look," said Harry quietly, licking his parched lips, "Ron, she's very upset. Leave her be for a while." He didn't feel like arguing with the revelations Ron had thrust forward. They might very well be true. Harry knew that.

"Don't fucking tell me I'm upset," gasped Ron angrily, backhanding the moisture off his cheeks. "I can't believe you, Hermione," said Ron, shaking his head in disgust. "How could you?" He was choking on his words as he yelled. "He's a beast!"

Hermione was crying silently now, taking his salvo submissively. Harry was frozen in his position on the other side of the sofa, staring at the floor, not wanting to speak. Or touch her.

Ron strode up to Hermione and leaned into her, grabbing her face. "After what I've done for you," he snarled softly. "You... never mind."

He exited the room quickly, not looking at her. Hermione sobbed harder, all her thoughts crowded to the front of her mind, jostling each other for room.

_**She saw red, everything was red, it was all red through her tears. Sitting in the grass somewhere, all she could see was red...**_

_**"I wish I could just forget it all..." She was crying, someone was holding her, and everything was red... She felt the tip of a wand at her back.**_


	15. Chapter 15

Luna stood impatiently in the bathroom stall, waiting for the other girl to stop peeing. The rush slowed to a tinkle and then stopped, and Luna exhaled happily.

_My turn!_

She made to pull up her robes, but remembered her discovery that morning.

_Damn, I forgot to bring my book bag in here._

"D'you have a pad?" she shouted to the girl in the other stall.

"No... sorry," came the reply.

Recognizing the voice, Luna dropped her robes and opened the stall door. Hermione stood at the sink, washing her hands.

"Sorry Hermione!" grinned Luna apologetically.

Hermione looked up, confused.

"I didn't know it was you!" laughed Luna, giving the older girl's arm a squeeze. "Of course you wouldn't have one. Anyway, see you later." She walked towards the door as she continued, "Are you coming to Divination this week? I think Trelawney rather hopes th-."

"What are you talking about?" interrupted Hermione, running a few paces and grabbing the sleeve of her robe.

"About Divination class," said Luna innocently.

"No, no," said Hermione. "I mean what do you mean about everything you said before that?"

"I just meant of course you wouldn't have a pad, because you wouldn't need one."

_Oh. My. Gods, _thought Hermione. _Is she one of those creepy stalkers that goes through your trash to find out personal things about you?_

Hermione let go of Luna in disgust, forgetting for a moment that she was in the wizarding world, and the house elves took care of all the waste.

"Well don't look at me so funny," said the other girl indignantly. "Of course I new you were pregnant; didn't you know I could see auras?"

Hermione stiffened, not believing what she had just heard. Her eyes widened and all the colour drained out of her cheeks.

"Preg - pregnant?"

Luna looked her up and down. "You...didn't know?" She shook her head incredulously. Hermione backed into the sink, feeling her tummy with her hands. Her eyes gazed into space.

_Of course. The...dream. I think I dreamed this... that I was... but how? I cast the charm every time..._

"I'm so sorry you found out like this," said Luna, putting an arm around her. "But it's a good thing you found out, isn't it?" Her eyes were beginning to do the creepy thing where they unfocused. It almost made Luna look thoughtful. "But how could you not have known? Didn't you skip your period, or . . . or I don't know, throw up or something?"

Hermione shook her head slowly, she was in a haze. "I skip my periods sometimes normally . . . my doctor said, I mean it's because. . ." she trailed off.

_Pregnant. I'm pregnant._

" . . . because I'm so petite," she found herself continuing.

_It must have been the first time with Severus. I don't remember if I cast it or not...that time._ _Oh Gods... what am I going to do?_

---

That afternoon, Hermione went to the owlery and scribbled a quick note to Snape. Somehow she couldn't face him without knowing that he knew. And to have to say it in person was too much right now.

_I'm pregnant, _she wrote.

_- H.G._

---

How was it that the note intended for her Potions Professor ended up in the hands of Lucius Malfoy? To be sure, that's exactly what his son would have wanted – short of actually having an affair with Hermione, this would be the next-best thing! Draco had decided towards the end of the summer that she was the prettiest – and therefore, most convincing – 'Mudblood' at Hogwarts, thus the most realistic in his campaign for his father to forget he ever had a son.

Though Draco might well have painstakingly planned an operation in which he intercepted all of Hermione's mail and redirected some letters, or even simply forged a letter himself, in the end it was much simpler. In fact, Draco didn't have to do anything.

Kreacher did it for him.

---

She had only managed to read the paper twice over before Kreacher had crept around her, a mass of silver cutlery in his arms. He dropped the lot as Hermione jumped in surprise, clutching the paper to her chest. She quickly escaped to her room as Kreacher's watery eyes followed narrowed in dislike. She could still hear him muttering on about 'Mudblood filth' contaminating his mistress' house as she reached the first floor landing.

Alone for a moment while Ginny visited Tonks in her room, Hermione pondered the situation, unable to accept the reality that she, budding student, had been summoned to man's room at an obscenely inappropriate hour. It almost hurt her feminist ego.

"Hey Hermione," said Ginny, smiling as she entered the room. Hermione, startled, let the slip of paper she'd been holding flutter to the floor. "Do you want to go to sleep yet?"

"Oh – uh – no, not quite yet," she'd improvised, "I'm just going to go read in the library until I get sleepy."

---

"Kreacher knows what master does, oh –yes!" he cried with glee. "Kreacher knows all about his secret, all about the Mudblood whore and their little dirty trysts." He waved around the piece of paper Hermione had dropped in her bedroom. She and the other students were long gone, but in cleaning up after them Kreacher had discovered several items they had left behind (three pieces of nose-bleed nougat, two old textbooks and one new one, and a self-inking wand) in addition to the note Sirius had written.

"Kreacher can not back-talk his Master, no, oh no he won't do that, Kreacher will do him one better. . ." The house elf hopped up and down with glee.

And he had. In visiting Black family relatives, he let on that there was something suspicious about Harry's girly friend, oh yes, something quite amiss. And though his eagerness to destroy Miss Granger was for more personal reasons, Lucius Malfoy interpreted Kreacher's hints in a broader sense and told the elf to fetch for him the Mudblood's letters, every letter, without exception, and to also trail her around the school whenever he could. Perhaps there was something important to what she was doing, something that could give Lucius a way to get to that Potter boy, so he could become _his _Master's favorite once again.

"Report everything you find both to me and to Severus Snape, the Potions Master," commanded Lucius icily. I have notified him of your . . . suspicions, and he has agreed to investigate the girl with much greater detail . . ."

---

It was simple for Lucius to put two and two together, Draco's letter and Hermione's note – thought Kreacher admitted he knew nothing about them ever meeting.

"Stupid elf!" bellowed the imposing man, kicking the little elf hard in the back as he rose from his throne-like seat. "You let my son and that slutty little Muggle carry on right under your nose!"

"No, no Mr. Malfoy, Kreacher didn't know, Kreacher didn't see -,"

"Stop your sniveling!" he shouted.

"It was that Professor of yours, I'm sure!" whimpered Kreacher. "Kreacher would never follow her there, Mr. Malfoy, no. Kreacher assumed Mr. Snape was doing his job because Mr. Malfoy said Kreacher could trust him, but no, now Kreacher thinks, yes, he is sure, that -,"

But Lucius had had enough. "Go back to your Master's house and never come here again, you worthless lump of an elf," he spat. "I don't want to hear your driveling, or any excuses you've tried to invent. Perhaps Sirius has put you up to this, well I won't let myself be mocked any more!" He was working himself up into a rage, the two papers shaking in his red fist while Kreacher shuddered at his feet. "This is a gross humiliation to the Malfoy name, and you'll see whether or not my son and that harlot will pay! Oh, you'll see if they don't . . ."


	16. Chapter 16

**Hi diligent readers! Apologies that this chapter is so short, but it made more sense to break up the story this way. Thanks to everyone who has been reviewing, especially the reviews commenting on the nature of the story - I do like my feedback, yes I do! The more you readers tell me what you like and dislike, the better I know how to please you all in the future! I write for my readers more than myself, so encourage me! **

Harry knew that something was going to go wrong soon – Lord Voldemort couldn't stay idle forever and when he made his move, Harry would be there to do something about it – having head the prophecy in which the Dark Lord put so much faith into, Harry felt a little stronger and a little more determined. Having Sirius helped too – he was the closest thing Harry had to family, and tremendously comforting when Harry felt doomed or lonely. In the past, Ron and Hermione had both taken this role as well, but recently the trio seemed to have grown farther and farther apart. While Hermione had become increasingly secretive after their confrontation about her relations with Snape, Ron had begun harboring the attentions of a certain Lavender Brown. It became more and more irritating to Harry as his friends shrugged him off for sexual pastures. Never mind that he himself was still a virgin, though he'd be hard-pressed to admit it.

Ruffling a hand through his hair, he peered through his glasses around the common room. Lately he had boycotted Ron and Hermione's place – for obvious reasons. But the roaring warmth of the Gryffindor fireplace and the camaraderie of his fellow housemates seemed empty compared to life without the other two.

Two figures huddled in the corner caught Harry's eye. They were whispering, and a female voice was growing increasingly agitated. Adjusting his frames he realized that it was Ginny and Neville engrossed in conversation. She seemed to be explaining something to him, but Neville kept shaking his head, seeming reluctant to agree. Ginny grabbed the hem of his robes as he got up stubbornly and walked away.

"Please Neville, we have to talk to him!" she whispered loudly. "Who knows what he might do -,"

Her words were curtailed as she caught Harry's gaze.

"Just think about it," she continued warily, trying not to meet Harry's eyes. Neville leaped up the stairs to the boys' dormitory, and Ginny started to collect her books, which were strewn around where they had been sitting.

Harry turned back to the essay he had been writing for Defense Against the Dark Arts, but thought better of it and approached the red-haired girl.

"Hey Ginny," he began. "D'you –,"

"None of your business!" she hissed, glaring at him.

"Wha . . . I mean, what do you mean?"

Her look softened, but her eyes remained suspicious. "What were you going to ask?"

"Well, I just wanted to ask if you, uh, wanted to go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend or something, y'know," he fumbled. "If you, uh, wanted to . . . I mean."

Ginny smiled prettily but an apologetic look passed through her eyes. "Gee, thanks Harry but, uh, Neville's already taking me."

"Oh."

"Well, see you later Harry."

"Bye Ginny."

It took Harry a few minutes to fully comprehend the idea that Neville and Ginny were going to Hogsmeade together. It seemed too ridiculous to comprehend! Ginny had only _just _broken up with Dean, (who had been a good-looking fellow) and Harry had been _so sure_ that she would say yes.

_What kind of warped universe is this anyway?_ he thought.

---

Hermione paced back and forth in her room, hands massaging her belly. She had waited all day for Snape to send her a message, whether it was to summon her to his rooms to banish her from them altogether, she didn't care she just needed some news, any news! Her eyes flashed from corner to corner of the room as she became increasingly panicked.

_Why do I even believe that silly girl, she says she can see auras well she's as loony as a bat, loony Luna Lovegood, loony like Moony – Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. Prongs, Prongs, Prongs . . . I'm _not _pregnant I'm not I'm not I'm not! _

But her gut told her it was so, she knew, she could feel it. It was an inexorable feeling, a pulling at her insides where there had been no such sensation only three weeks ago . . .

Tomorrow, tomorrow perhaps she would go into Hogsmeade and take the train and go home to her parents.

_No! I can't do that, what would I say and what would I do? _

Options gathered and ran out of her head like scattering mice until only two were left – own up to her affair and keep the child, or find an old crone who would get rid of it for her. But how could a smart, bookish girl like her know how to choose? Books never played neutral and helped you decide what to do, they advocated and condemned and recommended and argued. How was a girl like her to choose?

She sat down on the edger of her bed and buried her arms in the tangled sheets strewn across kits unmade surface.

_I only have so much time to decide before time decides for me! _

---

The Hogsmeade Saturday dawned grey and chilly, the first nip of Autumn weather in the air. Down the empty main-street, Harry and Ron trudged listlessly past each storefront. Whether consciously or no, they felt Hermione's absence somewhat stingingly and resented her transparent excuse that she had too much homework to do.

"It's only the third week of school, Hermione, Jeez!" Ron had exclaimed as he and Harry slipped through the portrait.

"I'll meet you guys there later!" Hermione called after them. "Maybe," she said, under her breath."

Ron and Harry felt bored in town, though Hogsmeade excursions used to be the highlights of the semester. Ron was peering inside Madame Puddifoot's at Parvati Patel and Zacharias Smith making eyes at each other and Harry was pulling on his robes to move on when he saw it. Ginny and Neville walking down towards them with linked arms, laughing at some inside joke. Harry's eyes narrowed. He felt helpless – it was completely egotistical, but he knew it to be true – he was everything more than Neville, yet Ginny was waltzing around in public with _him_. The scene was more than flesh and blood could bear!

Before Harry knew it, he had let go of Ron's robes and was striding towards the happy couple with arms clenched at his sides.

"Ginny!" he called out, angry at the hurt in his voice."

"Hey, Harry!" she replied, waving.

"What do you think you're doing?" Harry asked lamely.

"Uh – enjoying the weekend?" Ginny's eyebrows knitted together in the beginning stage of annoyance.

"Oh, hey, there you are Ginny!" exclaimed Ron, pulling himself away from the snogfest inside the teashop.

"Hey Ron," mumbled Neville shyly.

"I was just asking this lot what the hell they were, uh, doing," Harry mumbled towards Ron.

"What about it?" Ginny asked, challenging him. Her hands were perched on her hips and she looked devilish.

"We were just on our way to grab a drink," squeaked Neville as Harry's face contorted with jealousy.

"Can't a girl hang out with her guyfriend in _peace?_" demanded Ginny, pulling Neville away and continuing down the street. "Good _Gods_, stupid boys and the stupid ideas they get in their stupid heads!" her voice trailed off.

Harry watched them go, Neville attempting to loosen Ginny's tight grip on his arm, when Ron seized his elbow and gasped. Harry's head wrenched around as he heard a scream. Hermione's scream.

A hooded figure was pulled her down a side-street, one hand pressed to her mouth. Hermione had bit the gloved gag, which slipped long enough for her to let out a shriek, but too quickly slid back into place. The tall figure was grasping a wand in the other hand and held it out to challenge Harry and Ron's belated arrival on the scene before apparating with Hermione in tow.

Shock gripped Harry by the testicles. It twisted itself through his gut, his neck, freezing his mind with horror until Ron pulled him to his senses by the back of his robes.

"C'mon Harry!" he bellowed. "We have to get help!"

With a snap back to reality, the two boys ran down the street.

**This is the last chapter in my backed-up arsenal, and signifies the end of twice-a-day updates. Now I actually have to take the time to write the second half of this story, hah! Cheers to you, reader, R & R !!**


	17. Chapter 17

The room was furnished in verdant hues, velvet and silk coated the walls and floor. Hermione found it stifling and distasteful, but perhaps her horror at the situation had something to do with that. The sides of the room pressed in on her menacingly as she sat on the carpet by the foot of the bed with the sleeve of her robe torn and her wand quickly removed. If she hadn't been in shock she would have been terrified. The black-swathed figure had come out of nowhere like a shadow or a pool of water seeping through cracks, enveloping its prey. There had only been a second to react, and though she had tried to scream, it was hard to remember whether or not a sound had actually come out of her throat.

Hermione had almost pulled her hair out with frustration at Snape's silence, but had finally decided to try and relax in town. The road had been damp with rain from the early morning, and she had been thinking – thinking about, of all people – Draco Malfoy, when it had happened.

It was easy to guess the identity of her abductor, but she was almost afraid to. The thought crept around the corners of her mind like a spider spinning the edges of its web. And _she_ was the fly.

---

Harry flung open the castle's main doors, skidding down the entryway and almost slipping in a puddle of spilled pumpkin juice.

"Professor!" he yelled, running breathless into the Great Hall. Professors McGonagall, Snape, Dumbledore and Vector had just sat down to what looked like scones and tea. "Hermoine's been taken," he panted, wilding searching the teacher's faces for more than a confused reaction.

"What?" asked McGonagall incredulously. "What on earth do you mean?" She narrowed her eyes as Ron ran into the hall seconds behind his friend, equally breathless.

"Someone grabbed her in Hogsmeade and they apparated, I mean, he took her – apparated her away with him – or her," stammered Harry, gasping for breath.

"Hermione's been acting rather strangely, lately," added Ron, looking straight at Snape. "We were worried about her after she passed out in class, and now this-," he broke off, his voice suddenly high-pitched. "Someone's taken her!"

"Do you have any idea why?" McGonagall's eyebrows had almost disappeared into her hairline and her hand was shaking.

"If you have no explanation, then the best thing to do is simply notify the ministry immediately," said Dumbledore calmly.

"Well then let's do it!" said Harry. "Hermione's life might be in danger. Whatever is going on, I think it has implications for more than just Hermione."

"What makes you say that?" asked McGonagall. Professor Vector observed the conversation from behind a pink enamel cup of Earl Grey.

Dumbledore rose from his seat in a regal manner and places his index fingers on his temples before anyone could reply. "Come to my office Harry, Ron you too. Minerva?" he questioned with a glance, leading them out of the Great Hall. "We must look into this immediately. One can never be too careful these days – Somehow I don't think that this is a school prank."

"I don't think so either, Professor," said Harry cautiously as they exited.

Professor Snape's hold on his fork loosened from the vise-like grip it had taken on. He excused himself hastily and, robes billowing, retired to his quarters with a look of fear upon his face.

Professor Vector shrugged and continued his tea without his colleagues.

---

"Hermione," drawled the voice. "So glad you're finding yourself at home." Hermione rose from her seated position and faced her abductor. The carpet gave way under her wobbly feet. It felt as if sand had been poured into her shoes and her legs turned to jelly.

"Oh, don't rise on my part," he smirked. "I might like you better if you were less co-operative."

"And why would I want you to like me?" hissed Hermione scathingly, hands tightening around the footboard of the bed.

"You're right," replied Lucius. "It's more fun when the feeling is mutual." He narrowed his eyes at the girls' petite form. Hermione had to stifle a shudder of anticipation. Adrenaline coursed through her body as she waited, waited, waited. But the man did not speak. She took a step forward hesitantly.

"I want my wand back," she stated. The corners of Lucius' mouth curled upward like burning paper.

"We can't have everything we want, now can we?" he replied, entering further into the room. Hermione inched towards the exit as he approached a window, facing away from her.

"For example, I cannot have a perfect son." His eyes tracked hers as they followed him across the room. He turned around before she had reached her destination. His eyes slitted in anger. "And _you_ cannot have a pristine reputation, Mublood _whore_." He spat out the words like they were poison on his tongue. Hermione felt them hit her like a slap in the face. She reeled back physically from the attack, groping for the doorframe with her hands.

"Don't try to leave," he advised. "Better to be good now, and receive just rewards later." He flared his nostrils and licked his lower lip obscenely.

"My affairs are none of your business," whispered Hermione hoarsely.

"Oh but they are." Lucius stepped towards her quickly until the hem of his robes swished noiselessly against hers. "They are when you involve my family. When you involve my _son_."

"I don't know what you're talking about!" she exclaimed.

"Oh, but you do."

"No –," Hermione panted. "Someone's been telling you -," she broke off, hyperventilating. "- lies," she finished.

_Draco, Draco, Draco . . . what have you told him, _what?_ There was nothing to tell, nothing happened, nothing happened, nothing happened. There was only Severus! What -_

"I know all about your sordid comings and goings!" he spat out. His face hovered above hers, arms blocking her from moving past the doorway. His proximity was intimidating, and made Hermione feel almost nauseous. "I wonder what he sees in you, filthy dirt running through your veins." He ran an elegant finger across her collarbone. "Perhaps I should see for myself."

Hermione looked up fiercely into Lucius Malfoy's eyes. "What do you want?" she asked boldly.

"Nothing I don't already have," he countered, and with a swish of his wand, closed the door."

---

**Sorry this chapter took so long, I realized I had a social life to attend to and got caught up with friends. Please review, more coming soon . . . The long-awaited answers to some very important questions will ensue in a few more chapters!**


	18. Chapter 18

She reached for her wand.

"Don't touch me," she warned.

He grabbed her wrist.

_No. No! NO!! Where's my wand?!_

Lucius leaned in towards his prey, a spider with his victim trapped at the center of his web. Hermione turned her cheek away from him fell back against the doorframe, but he grabbed the front of her robes and dragged her forwards towards the bed as she struggled, silence clenched around her throat. The covers felt cool and balmy against her bare less, once it was bare. The light streaming in through the windows pitied her, but could do nothing. She focused her vision on a hard, ornate chair by the fireplace. It too, refused to help. The ceiling spun away like water down a drain, her eyes unfocused and refocused – but the view was the same.

His shoulder-length hair brushed her cheek as his broad palms kneaded her flesh. Robes were not armor, not protection nor safeguard. They fell back in tatters from groping hands, peeling apologetically away from her screaming skin. Hermione's hands fell about his shoulders in a half-embrace, or so it seemed. Weakly, she pushed at him, but he pushed back, ever harder, knees pinning her to the mattress, his lipless mouth tearing at her flesh. Did she feel any pain, or self-pity? Was the horror real or fantasy? Was she tempted to succumb and surrender, or were all her efforts signs of the fiercest struggle she would ever fight?

It was soft, this cloud around her head. Tangled covers and matted hair. But the sweat tickled her shoulders and neck and though she felt warm, her hands were clammy above her head.

What day was it?

The sun was low in the sky, and the dust motes sank ever lower in their orbits as her eyes flickered open, and then closed. Lucius had his foot pinned underneath her back, and it was starting to hurt. His robes and hers lay entwined on the floor, like yin and yang, black and white. She could barely hear him anymore or at least tried not to. It was too sexual, to listen. Too much of a reminder of hot, wet sounds and moans breaking hoarsely from raw throats. Here, in this quiet place, this silent place, she could feel pressures and temperature, but as if her body were made of clay, it accommodated.

Had it really taken so short a time to get to this place? Once, once out of the dozens of instances over the past few days she had screamed, flailed, fought, kicked, bitten, sobbed, cried out – but it only egged him on. It was immensely arousing, he thought. It made him de-robe all the quicker, suck at her flesh all the harder, like a vampire, a dementor intent on her soul. It made him enter her all the sooner, eliciting a dry cough of nausea from her throat which turned into a gag, which turned into another outlet for his, _his_ abuse. If her disgust ever had a chance to surface from the shock, the numbness, then perhaps she would have registered more the slippery sensation between her thighs or the stickiness at the edge of her mouth. Would it have made it worse, or better, to come backs to reality and feel like she was still alive?

The first time, the first day, she had felt shock and surprise. The second day provoked anger. The third, submission. The fourth day, the revolt of her own body's betrayal into pleasure was the worst. This, the fifth day, was without feeling.

---

When Lucius finally removed himself from her, Hermione still hadn't moved. He dressed, watching her all the while. Her listlessness made him suspicious. The silence emanating from Hogwarts and the Ministry made him suspicious. Why had no one come looking for her, yet? But then, that was a naïve idea. Of course they were looking for her; they were just being quiet about it. No matter, he had already decided what he was going to do with the young witch. But first a meal – and then perhaps more playtime.

---

Hermione felt herself being pulled upright, but the sudden movement gave her vertigo and she vomited with fatigue. The impulse was rewarded with a slap across the face, but she felt little hands brusquely wiping her clean. She opened her eyes with fatigue and saw a house elf perched beside her, putting on her socks and shoes.

_Funny, _she thought. _I didn't even realize they'd been taken off._

The house-elf dressed her and held back her hair when she vomited again, though it gave her a dirty look as it cleaned the soiled carpet with magic. There wasn't much to it, anyways. Though simple meals had been placed in her room twice a day, she had been too out of it to do much except take sips of the water. At least, that's all she remembered. Perhaps she _had_ eaten earlier that day, though – it wasn't just sour bile that now stained the front of her robes. The house elf gave an impatient click of its little tongue, cleaned her again, and left. Hermione sat on the edge of the bed weakly, leaning against the bed post.

A few minutes later her jailor swept into the room, his face disdainful. Without a word he gasped her arm with a strong hand and Hermione felt herself apparate and pass out.

When she came to, she was on the floor in an alley. Lucius Malfoy stood crouched over her – an image she felt uncomfortably familiar. Water spouted from his wand into her face, bringing her back to consciousness. She spluttered and coughed, then gagged against the white hand clenched around her mouth.

"Miss Granger, no one can hear you scream but I don't think I'll give you the luxury." His perverse smirk penetrated deep into her body even before he did physically. This day, the sixth day, was a day of fear.

"No, no, no . . ." she started gasping, trying to crawl away. Her nails scraped against the asphalt, her fingers raw and bleeding. A lascivious tongue slipped out from her tormentor's lips and between hers. She moaned in desperation but his hands held her jaw and she was helpless to bite down. Fumbling between her legs, he drew her robe up and stroked her with his free hand – first deceptively gently, and then harder until it hurt so much that she screamed.

His laugh was low and cruel. "You know just how to turn me on, don't you, Hermione?" he whispered in her ear. Her eyes welled up, dark with her emotion but he was unrelenting. "Don't you wish Harry Potter could see you now? What would he do? Would he save you? Could he?" He grinned. "Maybe he would just _watch." _Lucius pushed himself between her lips.This time hurt her more than any of the previous times on any of the previous days because she was unable to escape into that liminal world of silence. Here, now, he was speaking to her, provoking her, his lips forming the names of those she loved most, voicing her shame.

"And what about Draco? he growled in her ear. "Do I remind you of him? Do I _fuck _you like he did?" he pulled out of her, but grabbed her thighs again and forced himself inside her roughly. "Or do I do a better job?" he purred. "I think you prefer this, don't you, Hermione?" He was rocking faster and faster until she could feel her body give under him force, ripping and screaming, every inch.

---

Ministry officials flocked around the scene, all hesitant to enter the darkness.

"Well someone has to go in! Scrimgeour bellowed, pushing through the crowd, wand held aloft and glowing. The Dark Mark shimmered menacingly green above the Muggle buildings. The slouching man held his arm out to illuminate the narrow length of the alley. His circle of light fell upon Hermione's bloody form, robes still pulled obscenely up to her neck.

Scrimgeour made a strangled sound in his throat and lowered his wand. "Alert Dumbledore!" he barked out. "It's his missing student." He averted his eyes from the group of officials. "And find me a Mediwitch," he hissed to his assistant, Percy Weasley. "No, no not you," he said gruffly, pushing aside an old wizard with a medical bag. He looked insulted, but Scrimgeour just narrowed his eyes. "A Medi_witch_, I said!" he shouted. "The girl is hurt."


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 20**

Dumbledore barreled down the hall at a run, robes swishing behind him where Harry, Ron and Professor McGonagall were jogging after him. The hall was empty, even for a weekend. No one was there to hear the muttered password (Peach Pucker Pop) or see the four wizards dash behind the stone gargoyle. Dumbledore's office seemed strangely serene in comparison to the urgency which had grasped each of the party.

"Tell Scrimgeour I need to meet with him," Dumbledore said brusquely to the portrait of an old headmaster, who promptly ducked out of his frame to fetch the Minister.

Harry had only a minute to feel impatient before the flames of the hearth burned green and the slouching man himself stepped out of the fire, looking distinctly ruffled.

"What is it, Dumbledore? Has the school been attacked?" His perceptive eyes scanned the room intently, right hand fisted around the brass boar which made up the top of his cane. Its eyes moved around the group as well, but gave an uninterested snuffle and lay still under his grip.

"No, Scrimgeour. But a student has been kidnapped," replied McGonagall in a high voice. She cleared her throat and looked slightly embarrassed.

"What do you mean?"

"She's been kidnapped!" shouted Harry, nevermind that this was the first he'd eveer seen of the new Minister of Magic. "Today, in Hogsmeade, by a Death Eater, I'm sure of it."

"Death Eaters . . ." Scrimgeour's eyes locked fiercely with Harry's, arting up to his forehead only briefly. "Well, my boy," he hissed. "The next show had to start soon, didn't it?" He put one foot into the hearth's ashes and turned to the headmaster. "Keep in touch, Dumbledore. I'll alert a special team of Aurors and we'll see . . ." he nodded vigorously and threw some powder into the flames. "We'll see," he repeated, and then disappeared.

"What?!" exclaimed Harry. "That's _it_, that's all he's going to do?"

"Did you not hear correctly, Mr. Potter?" McGonagall said, peering down from the glasses perched on the end of her nose. "The Ministry is looking for her now. There's not much we can do, is there?"

"I don't believe him!" Harry seethed. "Why did he believe us so quickly? It's not like the Minister, any Minister to take our word as true. I don't believe he takes us seriously for one second!"

"I understand your concern, Harry," Dumbledore sighed, rubbing his temples with wrinkled hands. "But we are not completely helpless in this." He looked from Harry to Ron and back again, then took a fatigued seat behind his desk. "Let Sirius know, Harry. Use my floo, go to him now but come back quickly. We will wait."

Harry nodded stiffly and moved towards the fireplace. It flickered lime and emerald as he threw in his hand's contents. "12 Grimmauld Place!" he said clearly, before being consumed.

He stepped out of the kitchen fire, spluttering on the other side.

"Harry!" Sirius looked up from a bottle of butterbeer and a tattered book.

"Sirius, it's Hermione!" The other man's face fell as if he'd been shot.

"What are you talking about?"

"She's been kidnapped by a Death Eater, we don't know who, and Scrimgeour, the Minister of Magic says the Ministry will look for her but I don't know if I can trust him, and anyway Dumbledore told me to come and tell you first thing, but I -,"

"Shh, Harry, Harry . . ." Sirius tried to calm the boy down. He stood up and put his arm around him, but Harry broke away and started pacing the floor. "Sirius, we don't know what to do." His green eyes were desperate.

"Well let's get back to Hogwarts and talk it through," the older man said abruptly, pulling Harry towards the fire. Before he had a chance to argue the two of them were spinning madly around, only to stop back in Dumbledore's office.

McGonagall gave a small gasp as she saw Sirius Black for the first time in a long while. Hearing his story had made the idea of him unthreatening, but years of believing in his crime had tempered her expectations of this dark, bristling man. He looked especially intimidating now, in the throes of anger.

"Mr. Black!" she gasped.

"Sirius!" exclaimed Dumbledore threateningly. "I told you not to leave Grimmauld place-,"

"Good to see you!" smiled Ron weakly, patting the man on the back.

"- it's for your own safety, for the safety of the Order and for –,"

"Albus," the other man interrupted, "How can you expect that under these circumstances I would submit myself to imprisonment within my own home, and even if this hadn't happened, I-,"

"I thought letting you go to Arthur and Molly's over the summer was lax enough, Sirius, but we can't be taking so many risks, not when Voldemort-,"

"Oh, don't say that out loud!" hissed McGonagall in a reprimanding tone, pressing her hands over her ears.

"- not when Voldemort is practically knocking on our doorstep!"

"Not when a Death Eater has one of your students in his power!" retorted Sirius.

"One of the people closest to Harry has been threatened," said the Headmaster levelly. "I understand why this is a cause of greatest concern to you, but –,"

"What do you know?!" bellowed Sirius. "You don't know the half of it!"

"I'm afraid I do, though I might not approve, she is-,"

"Of course you wouldn't! I wouldn't expect for a second that you would feign to understand _love_."

"Sirius!" bellowed the older man, standing. His eyes glistened with fury. "Do not accuse me of ignorance. There is much I do not know, but you are being vastly unfair."

"I'm sorry, Albus, I was out of place."

"Yes, you were." The room filled with an uncomfortable silence. Dumbledore seemed lost in thought, and Sirius avoided his eyes. McGonagall was mumbling something under her breath when Ron came to his senses.

"_Hey!_" bellowed Ron. "_Hey!"_ He waved his arms around frantically. "Where's Harry?" Everyone looked around, but the Boy Who Lived was gone.

While the two men Harry respected most in life had been bickering, Harry slipped out of the room unnoticed and made his way up to the sixth years' dormitory. By the time Sirius had returned to Grimmauld place, cursing his confinement, Harry already had his broom and invisibility cloak in hand. By the time Professor Dumbledore had left for the Ministry to see what the Minister of Magic was really going to do about the situation, Harry was already climbing the stairs to the Astronomy tower. And by the time Professor McGonagall and Ron discovered the fluffed-up pillows under the covers on his bed, he was just a black speck in the afternoon sky.

---

Days passed, and no-one knew where Harry or Hermione could be. Dumbledore had assured himself that the Ministry was quietly making inquiries. Sirius was punching holes in his bedroom. Ron, as the only remaining member of the trio, allowed himself to be submitted to social scrutiny and rumor. It took Draco Malfoy's stage-whisper that the two had eloped like romantic cowards for the red-head to crack. Fortunately, Ron's only injuries were torn robes and bruised knuckles. Draco did not fare so well, but he had theories he cared not to voice about the missing students. Regret and guilt festered in his mind like a pus-filled boil. It was hard to ignore, but he put on a good show.

Snape, however, was doing a little bit more, and saying a whole lot less. Dumbledore was privately investigating the disappearance of Hogwarts' smartest witch, but Snape already knew where she was, and with whom. It didn't take Nicholas Flamel to put two and two together – Lucius' strange inquiry which Snape had almost brushed off as a neurotic whim, and the girl's kidnapping.

It was infuriating for him to visit the man every day and dawdle over tea and sandwiches while Lucius lied to his face, saying that he knew nothing of Hermione's whereabouts, and wasn't that odd, now? Well, the Dark Lord surely wasn't losing any sleep over it, so why should he, Severus?

Of course that sly old spider had her holed up somewhere, subjecting the girl who knows what. Except of course Severus _did _know. Before the Dark Lord fell, he had witnessed first-hand what Lucius was capable of and what he enjoyed. But for Severus, inaction was safer than action, and he did not want to jeopardize his tenuous position. He knew which side his bread was buttered on – both – and to risk that for one life was absurd.

Was he sincerely cruel? It didn't matter, after all, whose side he was actually loyal to. The point was that either way he would do nothing about this travesty, this violation that he passively watched from the sidelines, feigning ignorance.

He _was_ a beast, and it was his fault she was dying a little more inside, every day.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

The food Dobby had brought Harry in such a hurry had only lasted him four days. For the past two, he had resisted purchasing any, fearful that someone might recognize him and send him back to Hogwarts. Returning and sitting idle would be too painful. Though his nights sleeping behind Flourish and Blotts were riddled with doubt, he knew that he had to find his friend. Harry started his search by visiting each Death Eater's house independently, hiding under his father's invisibility cloak and listening in on whispered conversation. But nothing sounded relevant or even important, and many houses were completely vacant. After the fourth day, he resorted to skulking around Knockturn alley instead. On the sixth day, he had even gotten close enough to Lucius Malfoy to brush against his arm and make the man shiver involuntarily.

But the search came to no fruition. On the seventh day, Harry nicked his habitual copy of the Daily Prophet from a street vendor and read that the Ministry had found Hermione. No further details were included "to protect the girl's privacy," but even the hint that she was hurt, alive, perfectly alright or horribly injured – the possibilities welled up in Harry like bile up his throat. Cursing how he'd wasted his time, he jumped on his Firebolt and sped back to school, the hood of his invisibility cloak falling loose.

"Was that Harry Potter?" asked an incredulous witch. The only person around who heard her was a figure hooded in green with a long chin and pock-marked face.

"Who?" the other bystander snapped.

"That boy there, he flew away just now –,"

But Harry had pulled the hood around his head again, and was nowhere to be seen.

Bellatrix Lestrange touched her fingers to her face to check the glamour charm that disfigured it, then walked carefully back the way she'd came.

---

"Lucius!" the dark-haired woman yelled. She pushed her way past the furniture, crossing the Malfoy's parlour until she was almost nose-to-nose with her brother in law. "Why did you let the girl go?" Her eyes blazed. "You fool! Harry Potter was in Knockturn Alley this morning, presumably looking for her, and you've gone and given her back to him! Why go to all the trouble if not to keep her as bait?"

She backed away, giving a high-pitched laugh. "Oh, the Dark Lord will like _this _nice piece of information!" She glared at him. "But will Narcissa?"

Lucius sat quietly in his armchair, sunk comfortably into the wine-red plush which matched the elixir that filled the long-stemmed chalice occupying his right hand.

"Narcissa is visiting overseas," he replied languidly. "And everything else is none of your business. My actions concerned . . . personal affairs."

"Even so, Lucius! When the Dark Lord finds that you had the ability to lure the boy away from Dumbledore's care and failed to use it -! He will not be happy with either of us, not you, nor me, who am supposed to be helping you do just that! Why even tell me you had her, if not to use her to an advantage?"

"Sit down, Bellatrix."

The woman scoffed and walked across the room to pour herself a drink. Lucius swirled the liquid in his cup and took a sip before speaking again. "The Mudblood is not the bait. I am."

"What?" Bellatrix snapped her head around, a mocking look plastered to her face.

"I concluded _my_ plans for her, but that doesn't mean our Lord won't get what _he _wants too." He cocked his head to one side. "When Potter realizes what I've done to his friend, _he _will come to _us._"

Bellatrix raised one eyebrow skeptically, but refrained from speaking.

---

Hermione regained consciousness just as a Mediwitch had set her out on a bed at St. Mungos. Her filthy, bloodstained body scarred the white sheets, and as she opened her eyes, she felt like a blister on the pristine room.

"Darling, you're safe now," whispered the Mediwitch. She peered gently at Hermione through orange-rimmed pince-nez and her head was surrounded by a sparse fluff of grey hair. The wrinkles of her face and her dumpy frame reminded Hermione of her Muggle Grandmother, though she still felt somewhat panicked. As she tried to slow her frantic breathing, the elderly woman spoke again. "I'd like to clean you up dear, is that all right?"

The younger woman opened her mouth to concede, but closed it again. "I – I'd rather do it myself, please."

The Mediwitch nodded, replacing the wet cloth she had been holding beside a large bowl full of steaming water. She got up to leave.

"Wait."

The Mediwitch turned around, adjusting her glasses. Hermione sat up slowly on the bed. "Do you – do you need any, um," she swallowed, feeling tears coming to her eyes. "Samples? For tests? I mean, in the Muggle world, when this – this happens -,"

"Don't worry, dear," the Mediwitch replied, smiling softly. "That's all taken care of. All you have to do is think about _you_ right now." Her smile fluttered and suddenly faded. "But you should know, "she said softly, "You lost the baby." Hermione nodded as if she already been in possession of that information and motioned for the Witch to leave. The woman exhaled and with that she left the room, locking the door quietly behind her.

Hermione sighed, shuddering. The past week had been too much for anyone to logically handle. Pulling up her knees, she rested her forehead on them and abandoned herself to tears. When those were spent, she willed herself to get up. In the opposite corner of the room was a gleaming walnut wardrobe. She stepped over to it, stumbling once. Her heels were raw and scabbed from being scraped against the asphalt during her last struggle. Her feet burned as she put her weight on them, but she made it. Pulling her clothes stiffly over her head, she undressed, keeping her eyes closed. Naked, she shuddered and opened the wardrobe door. Inside was a full-length mirror, reflecting every trophy of her aching body in the harsh light of the hospital room.

She looked at her form in the mirror, bruised . . . the cut above her eye, the purple blotches on her neck. The blood between her legs. Before she could see any more, she slammed the wardrobe closed, and half-crawled, half-staggered back to the bed.

---

Professor Dumbledore made no comment when Harry entered his office that morning. He only ordered him to eat a plate of sandwiches (which were conveniently already sitting on his desk) before the old Wizard went to find Ron.

"I want to talk to you two before we go to see Miss. Granger," Dumbledore explained to the boys when he returned. "She has endured . . . has survived -." His voice broke off.

"Professor, she is o.k. though isn't she?" asked Harry.

"She will live, Harry. If she is determined."

"Professor?"

"Though you showed extreme loyalty and bravery in going to look for her, I am sincerely; sincerely glad you did not find her."

"Professor, just tell us, we need to know!" Harry reddened with impatience as Ron stared intently at the tapestry hanging behind Dumbledore's desk. The seconds ticked away, but time pressed forward and finally the man allowed his lips to open like Pandora's box, spilling forth the seeds of horror.

"She has been raped."

"No. No, no . . ." Harry shook his head ferociously. "No!" He slammed his fists down in front of Dumbledore. "Who, Professor?" The anger in his voice could not hide how it quavered. Harry looked like he was about to throw up, Ron did. Dumbledore cleaned the floor of his office with a sweep of his wand, but let the tears gathering in his eyes drip freely down his face.

Harry slumped down on the floor, battling the feelings consuming him like a cremation fire. Despair. Loathing. Desperation. Fear. Sadness. Regret.

"Who?" echoed Ron, finally speaking from behind his friend.

"You should know, yet – I am hesitant to say. I know you are mature young men, but you are also young men in which blood runs high. I will tell you because you deserve to know, because I hope you will be mature enough to handle the information," he paused, looking from one student to the other, "I do not want either of you to abuse what I am about to say."

Harry gave a slow nod of acknowledgement, fully intending to disobey his mentor.

"I will tell you because you must know; though I believe it will do more harm than good."

"Well get on with it!" snapped Harry fiercely, ugly rage apparent in his expression. It took a second for the tension to dissipate. "I'm sorry Professor," he amended, looking away.

"Lucius Malfoy, Harry," Dumbledore said softly.

There was no response from either boy. Ron felt a dark dread deep inside his guts, but Harry saw only red, red, red rage filling him like a torrent of hate.

---

The three of them reached St. Mungos just as Hermione had finished the steaming chicken soup brought to her by the kindly Mediwitch. Ron ran up and embraced his friend, Harry approached more hesitantly, clasping her hand within his.

"Hermione," he said simply. Fear and hope shone in his face.

"Hi," she replied, looking questioningly at the older wizard. "Professor –,"

"No need to say anything, Miss. Granger," the man replied gently. "We are just happy that you are safe now."

"Thank you, Professor," Hermione said.

"There is one thing, if I may ask, Miss. Granger."

"Yes, Professor?"

Dumbledore turned to Harry and Ron. "Perhaps you two could wait in the hall . . ?"

"It's alright Professor, Anything I can tell you, I can tell them."

"As you wish Miss. Granger." He pressed his lips together, considering words, balancing them on his tongue. "Did Sirius know about the child?"

Ron's jaw dropped. He backed against the wall as if trying to escape the room. Harry looked incredulously from Hermione to Dumbledore. "Wha- What?" he whispered.

Hermione looked nervously at both her friends. "No, Professor." She shook her head. "Why should I have told him?"

"You wished him not to know?"

"No, I mean – yes. I mean, Professor, that I didn't tell anyone except the father, I didn't think anyone needed to know . . ."

Dumbledore's hand was shaking. He leaned in, looking curiously at his student. "Who did you believe to be the father?"

"Professor – I mean, Severus, of course."

Harry watched the dialogue intently, Ron with apprehension. The back of his neck had started to sweat profusely.

"Hermione," Dumbledore said carefully, "The Mediwitches tested the – the child, and it was Sirius Black's, no one elses'."

"That's impossible, Professor," Hermione argued, shaking her head. "The – the one time we were together I definitely cast the contraception spell . . ." her voice trailed off, she was blushing.

"Were you seeing Severus over the summer?"

"No."

"Then it is impossible that the child was his." Dumbledore's voice was confident. "The child had developed to six weeks. We have barely been back at school for a month."

"No . . ." Hermione shook her head. "That doesn't make any sense . . ."

Ron looked up at Hermione sitting up in the white bed, bruised and hurt and confused. When he finally spoke up it was barely a whisper, but all eyes turned to him. "It – it does make sense, though," he said.


	21. Chapter 21

"I'm so, so sorry Hermione," he continued, avoiding her eyes.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"It's all my fault, I didn't realize – I mean, I thought you meant it when you said you wanted to forget, that you would do anything, anything – I didn't – didn't think that you and him were that serious."

"Ron!" There was a tinge of fear in her voice. "Do you mean -?"

"You _obliviated _her?!" Harry, incredulous and angry finally spoke up.

"Uhm . . . yeaah . . ." Ron squeaked.

"How did this happen?" Dumbledore surveyed the trio with concern. Hermione, having received the worst shock of her like, couldn't help but fix her eyes on Ron's clenched form and shake her head. Ron looked away from her, gaze lowered, shame tingeing his skin pink. Harry looked like he was ready to sock him in the jaw. Meanwhile, their professor simply stood there, dumbfounded. It was all he could do to let his emotion show in his face, mourning the children's lost innocence – yes, to him, they were still children, even if they were 16 and almost of age. No matter what they'd had to endure, what their actions or re-actions might have been, their follies, their romances, they were still children.

"How did this happen?" he repeated, looking carefully over at Ron.

"I don't want to hear it," Hermione hissed abruptly. Her expression was hard, fathomless. "Please leave, all of you. I'm sorry Professor, I can't dead with this right now."

Harry eyed Dumbledore questioningly, but the older man simply nodded and motioned for them to leave – Ron going first. As a Mediwitch stationed outside the door pulled it closed after them, Harry caught sight of Hermione practically leaping from the bed to the wardrobe on the other side of the room. But then the door shut completely and she was out of sight.

The party refrained from speaking until they had flooed back to Hogwarts and were, once again, standing in the Headmaster's office. Without a word, Dumbledore shook the ask off the periwinkle blue robe he wore and crossed the room to the cabinet which Harry knew to contain his pensieve.

"Ron," he began, "I think it would benefit Miss. Granger if she could see, when she was ready, what actually happened." Ron nodded stiffly. Harry looked as if he were about to say something, but Dumbledore interrupted his parted lips. "Harry, I think you should go and rest now. _Please_," he said pointedly.

A mutinous look passed over the boy's face, but he too nodded, and then left.

"What do you need, Professor?" Ron asked, after Harry had shut the door.

"Just your memory, Ron." He smiled, somewhat bitterly, as he approached his student and held his wand up to the mass of red hair. "Just remember what happened, all of it in every detail possible. Let me know when you are done."

Ron closed his eyes and concentrated on that afternoon, that summer's day. He could see the field in his mind's eye. It expanded below him like a green – what, postage stamp? Yes, that's what he had used to try and mail Harry a letter, years ago.

He was on his broom, flying in a downwards arc as a black ball shot out beneath him and gave a resounding _clunk_ as it met with Hermione's head. Turning left, he saw her fall and flew in a nosedive towards her. Twenty feet from the ground he managed to grab onto the collar of her muggle polo shirt and gently deposit her on the ground. Summer breezes fluttered his robes listlessly as be dismounted beside her.

"Hermione, are you all right?" he asked, letting go of her shirt.

"Owww . . . yeah it _does_," she said, scowling and rubbing the back of her skull. She sat down in the grass with a huff and Ron followed suit. The ground was cool and dry, though the sun was almost at its zenith. The rest of the Quiddich game had paused, and Sirius had gone inside to fetch Molly. A hundred meters away, the played remained suspended in air like ink spots. The Weasley twins seemed impatient to continue.

"Are you alright, Hermione?" asked Tonks, flying over to where she was sitting.

"Yeah," the younger girl replied. "I just think I need to sit this one out, rest for a bit."

"O.k., you'll stay with her, won't you?" she asked Ron. He nodded.

"She's fine!" Tonks hollered, flying back towards the game. "Just taking a breather."

"Alright my side," Charlie shouted, flying circles around his little sister, "Let's put on a good show!"

"I'll fill in as goalie for Ron," George chimed in, and the game resumed.

Back on the ground, Hermione had started to quietly cry.

"What's wrong, "Mione?" asked Ron, letting go of his broom.

"It's – it's nothing," she croaked, sobbing into her knees.

"Does your head hurt that bad? Sirius should be back with my Mum soon . . ."

That seemed to make it worse. "No, she insisted, "That's exactly it! Sirius!" She sniffled. "We got into a fight –,"

"With Sirius?"

"Yeah, I like him a lot!" She backhanded the moisture off of her cheeks. "And he said the most horrible thing and I wish I could just go back to the way things were before I said anything to him – Everything is horrible now! I wish I could forget it ever happened, but I can't!"

"Hermione, it can't be all that bad . . ." Ron patted her shoulder, trying to calm the distressed girl.

"Oh, but it is!" She drew daggers with her eyes. "You wouldn't understand."

"Hermione!" He tried to put his hand on hers, but she flicked it away. "Would you really want to forget something like that? Wouldn't it be better to remember if he's said something so bad to you, I mean -,"

"No, you don't know what I'm talking about. Uck, nevermind!" She got up quickly, brushing the grass off the seat of her jeans.

"I'm so sorry," he said, giving her a hug. "I wish I could fix this for you."

"I do too." She rested her head on his shoulder and shivered, burying her nose in his too-big Quiddich robes. "Oh, Ron . . . if I could just forget it all . . ."

Lips pressed together, he fumbled in the pocket of his robe for the wand hidden there and pressed the tip to her back. "Obliviate – Sirius, argument," he whispered. A crackle of energy ran through the wood and dissipated through his friend's body.

"Wha-," she started to say, pulling away from the embrace. Her eyes were unfocused, but they quickly filled with the scene at hand. She had caught sight of the wand. "Ron, that's not yours! Were you about to do magic? That's _so _illegal outside of school!"

"It's Charlie's," he answered, exasperated. "I borrowed it this morning to hex Fred for slipping that nosebleed nougat into my stew last night."

"You can be so immature!" Hermione threw her hands into the air. "Really, boys! What if you'd been caught? I can't believe it!"

Ron rolled his eyes and followed her lead back to the game which had apparently just ended.

_Maybe it didn't work?_ he thought._ Or did it?_

Harry had just caught the snitch and Tonks was changing her hair to various bright colors in celebration.

"That's it," said Ron, opening his eyes. Dumbledore pulled the thought away from his temple, a silver strand pulsing with white light.

"Thank you, Ron." He sighed. "You may leave now."

---

**_Thank you, readers! I hope this chapter answered some important questions you guys had. If you didn't get the clues leading up to this, go back and read the story from the beginning, they're there I promise. Comments, questions, criticism and flattery always appreicated. _**

**_Also! I am considering changing the story's title. It's kind of _blah. _Any suggestions?_**


	22. Chapter 22

Hermione wrenched open the door of the wardrobe and pulled out the duffel Professor McGonagall had sent over with some of her things. Her parents had not been contacted, to her great relief. Having gone to a month-long dental convention tour in America, Hermione hoped that there would be no need for them to know, at least not for a long, long time. Unfortunately, the kind Mediwitch who cared for her had mentioned that she could not be released until her parents gave their consent that the hospital had done all they could and she was not being sent off prematurely. This posed a problem – Hermione was itching to get back to school, to a sense of normalcy even though she acknowledged that nothing would be the same for her at Hogwarts ever again. How could she ever look Draco Malfoy – or, for that matter – Snape, or even Ron in the eyes ever again?

She longed for the simplicity of her mother's hand on her cheek, the way her father smelled of cigars and sage – but in no way could she tolerate soiling those memories with these! To Hermione, it was as if she had been a comet orbiting the solar system and had suddenly had her trajectory interrupted by a planet. All she was now was a scar, a crater, a blemish in time. Never again could she be in that euphoric state, circling the solar system with graceful abandon, spinning through space, despite Voldemort's presence the war efforts seemed innocent compared to this. This was the terrible reality – more than anything she could have fantasized about over the summer, more than her consorts, this had catapulted her into adulthood, a disorienting equilibrium which confused her. There was only one way to pull herself out of this, to concentrate all of her efforts on getting herself out of here!

All it had taken was Ron's confession to jolt her memory. She remembered snippets of that afternoon, like shredded cloth falling though her fingers. It was life something that had happened to her as a child; dreamlike and incomplete thoughts crawled around her mind like insects, taunting her. But it was enough. She didn't need to hear the story from his lips.

An urge had overcome her; she had to leave. It was all she could do not to throw the company out more forcefully – before the door had even shut she was half-way to the wardrobe door. Pulling out her things, she dressed in seconds. Over her sweater she shrugged on what she had hoped – what _was_ – at the bottom of the bag – her Muggle coat. The right pocket bulged slightly, and she pulled out the slim red box, inside which the time turner gleamed.

_Thank the Gods!_

The filigree chain slipped easily over her head, feeling cool against her neck. The glass rubbed against her stomach, the chain was so long.

Wrapping a Weasley-knitted scarf around her face like a mask, she pulled on the hood of her coat as a finishing touch. Over everything, she put on her all-weather black robe, adjusting hat hood as well, so that it came down over her eyes. Checking her reflection in the wardrobe mirror, she looked like a stout little witch, wholly unrecognizable from herself for all the extra layers. Stuffing the duffel and its remaining contents under the bedcovers, she grabbed her wand off the bedside table (Had Lucius returned it to her?) and slipped quietly out the door.

To her left was a long line of medical trolleys while lined the hall down to shiny double-doors labeled _The Woodruff Oxford Ward for Spell Damage. _To her right, the hallway expanded for about 100 meters. She put on a slight limp and started walking. The hallway opened up on the right after 30 meters or so, into a spacious waiting room, where secretaries and nurses were escorting visitors and patients to and from an array of twenty or so fireplaces, presumably connected to the floo network. Holding her breath, Hermione bowed her head and started for the closes fireplace. A young Mediwitch glanced at her in passing.

"Do you need some help, Ma'am?" she trilled.

Hermione grunted negatively and lumbered on, sweating under her cloak and robe. Gritting her teeth, she continued on, turning a corner around a row of plastic waiting chairs and tripped clumsily over the outstretched limbs of s fat old witch, garbed in a similar manner as she was, robe hood pulled low. Hissing under her breath, Hermione scrambled up while the older witch clutched the sleeve of her robe. Annoyed, she tried to pull free, but to no avail. Sticking out a bony hand, the witch shoved a hemp bag into at Hermione, her hand horribly disfigured by burns and blisters. Afraid that she was calling too much attention to herself, Hermione gave the witch a scathing look from under her hood and backed away, shoving the natty bag into a pocket in her cloak. Before the anyone had really noticed her, she had stepped into a fireplace and, dashing a handful of powder into the hearth, called out, "Hogwarts," unsure quite where she would end up.

Luckily, it wasn't Filches' office. The vague command had hurtled her into a spacious room which could only be described as a library or study. It was lined with books and broad, arching windows, allowing the orange rays of a setting sun illuminate the lush red and gold drapes which softened the room. The whole effect was one of regal, aged refinement. The books were all bound with leather and looked almost medieval. The window glass had a greenish tint. It too, seemed impossibly old. In front of the fireplace was a chaise longe. It was fashioned out of a curly iron frame, with a stuffed silk seat and back.

Hermione stepped out of the fireplace and took in the rest of her surroundings. In the middle of the room was a polished mahogany desk which she stepped towards instinctively. Its surface was covered in books and papers piled a foot high in places. Running a finger over the table, she notced that it was unblemished by dust. Either the room was still used frequently or the house elves cleaned it religiously. Hermione ran a hand through her hair.

_I've never been anywhere in Hogwarts like this – or read about anywhere like this room._ _Is this even Hogwarts? Have I accidentally gone back in time?_

Sitting down in the elaborately carved chair behind the desk she surveyed a sheaf of parchment on the desk. Picking it up in order to examine it further, she gasped when the papers turned to dust at her fingertips.

_They weren't protected by magic._

Hesitant to touch anything else, she held her hand cautiously over the cover of a medium-sized book bound in dark green leather. The cover was worn, the title faded. She placed one fingertip gently on its surface, but it refrained from self-destruction. She tested its durability by running a hand over it, before carefully picking it up. She opened the book, the spine crackling as if it hadn't been opened for a long time. It seemed to have protected from age by magic – its vellum pages weren't even worn, though they were covered with writing and seemed to be a small diary. Hermione flipped to the first page, where a name was inscribed with black ink in small, cramped writing.

Hermione almost dropped the book as she read it.

_Godric Gryffindor_.

Godric Gryffindor's private study? Never had she ever heard of such a place! But perhaps no one else knew of it, either? Shedding her cloak and coat, she crossed the room to the door.

_Where in the castle am I?_

Opening it a sliver, she poked her head out but there was nothing to see; it was dark as pitch outside. Confused, she pushed the door open a little further, holding up her wand. "Lumos," she whispered. Still nothing, it was like a void. Stepping forward out of the room she entered the dark space. It illuminated slightly. Hermione could see candles lining the wall around her, an arm's span away on either side. She traversed the space until she reached an arched iron door. A ring in the shape of a howling lion was where the doorknob should be – she pulled on it and it swung open easily. She craned her head around and peeked outside.

With a rush of adrenaline she quickly shut it again, as softly as she could. The corridor came out on the seventh floor – she was, technically speaking, in the Room of Requirement! Returning down the length of the dark hallway she re-entered the study. The windows looked out on the lake, shimmering in the dusky evening light. Hermione walked once around the room to make sure there were no other ways in or out, then collapsed on the floor with her back to a soft wall drape, dearly hoping no one else knew about the room.

Ready for sleep, Hemione sighed, laying down on the chaise longe. The sun dipped over the horizon and the room darkened.

Suddenly, she realized that she hadn't even looked to see what was in the canvas bag the woman at St. Mungos had thrust upon her. She had jammed it inside her robes without thinking, escape having been foremost on her mind.

Sitting up, she fumbled for her wand and lit it, then groped for the little bag amongst the pile of clothing she was using as a pillow. She emptied the contents out into her lap.

There was a small green crystal bottle.

A roll of crisp parchment.

And a crumpled, thrice folded page of vellum parchment, torn out of . . . was it from the diary she'd just looked over?

She tried to flatten it out and read it, but the text was small and cramped. At the base of the page she caught sight of a scribble in green ink. Holding it closer, she read:

_Kill Draco_.

And the handwriting was strangely familiar.


	23. Chapter 23

Harry broke into a run as soon as he stepped out from behind the gargoyle standing watch by the entrance to Dumbledore's office. One thought was foremost on his mind – Get to Lucius. He had little idea of what he wanted to do more than hurt him, but it was a fire in his marrow that propelled him forward. The thudding of his feet on the stone floor was echoed only by the blood rining in his ears.

_Lucius Malfoy. Malfoy. Malfoy!_

"Andromeda!" he hollered at the portrait of the fat lady. She swung her frame open to allow him entry but Harry pushed through roughly, slamming her into the other side of the wall.

"Now that was uncalled for!" the portrait hissed, flustered. Her frame was shaking for the force."Where are you going in such a hurry, young man?" But Harry was already half way up to the sixth year boys' dormitory, bounding up the stairs two at a time. "Honestly!" she exclaimed, closing herself gently. "Teen boys these days!"

Most students were in classes and had vacated the dormitory. Harry yanked back his bedcovers back to reach for his invisibility cloak and broom, but they were gone. Cursing, he wrenched apart his bed, his trunk, but to no avail – the treasures were gone. Harry screamed inside, running his fingers through his hair. _What do I do now?!_ He thought. A sense of urgency temporarily paralyzed his thought.

_The Marauder's Map! But what good will that do me, how will I get to Lucius? _He paced the room, feeling frantic. _Draco . . ._

He wrenched the parchment from its hiding place between an old Transfiguration textbook and ran off in search of Draco Malfoy. "I solemnly swear I up to no good," he whispered, jogging through the common room as he tapped the map with his wand. It revealed itself to him quickly, as if tuned into his hasty state. Harry pressed a hand against the portrait doorway as his eyes quickly scanned the map. Spotting his quarry, he said "Mischief managed," and pocketed the handy tool.

Hiding behind a tapestry in front of the Charms classroom he had spotted Draco within, Harry arranged himself flat against the wall. After twenty minutes he head the first students leave. Amidst the chatter and hubbub, Harry re-opened the map in his cramped hiding space. His plan was to follow Draco to lunch, stick him in the back with his wand, pull him into an empty cupboard and extract the secret to entering Malfoy Manor safely. If that was possible. Which probably wouldn't be easy, but at this point Harry told himself that a full body bind and some slow torture would be a necessary evil. In any case, the plan collapsed like a dwarf star because Draco seemed to have other plans. While Professor Flitwick and the sixth year Ravenclaws and Slytherins sauntered on their pretty way to lunch, the Maurader's Map showed Draco still seated in the classroom. Harry waited five more minutes, then resolutely put the parchment away and, wand aloft, entered the room. As soon as he had passed the threshold, the heavy door closed behind him with a determined thud. On guard, Harry advanced into the room. Draco was perched on the Professor's desk, wand twirling between his pale fingers. His other hand rested, fist clenched, at his side.

"Looking for someone, Potter?" A smile danced sourly on his lips.

"Yeah," the dark-haired boy answered quietly. "I am."

The smile disappeared. "Come here, Potter. I have something for you."

"Like fun you do!" he scoffed, giving his wand a test flick.

"Put that away."

"Why should I trust you?"

"You shouldn't." Draco flinched slightly as Harry stepped closer towards him. "But I know what you want and I will give it to you."

"You couldn't begin to fathom what I want!" Harry spat. Draco wrinkled his nose, then stretched out his hand, holding his palm out to Harry.

"Floo powder," he said quite calmly. "Use the direction, _Malfoy Manor_. You'll arrive in a hearth with a grate. You'll have five seconds to deliver the password or the grate will move forward and crush you against the back of the fireplace. For security purposes." The blonde's mouth curled up in a smirk. "The password is _Ophiuchus_. Once you give the password, the grate will slide away and you are free to roam about my house as you please. Whether my _father _is there or not –," he pronounced the word harshly – "I cannot guarantee."

Harry had not lowered his raised arm. "Why are you telling me this?" he queried.

"Because there is only one person in this world I believe deserves to die, and he is . . . not you," Draco managed to recite calmly. "After everything I've heard about what he did – to Granger – do you think I am proud?" His eyebrows narrowed. "Do you think I respect him? Everyone knows of course! Marietta Edgecombe's Aunt works at St. Mungos, she blabbed. No surprise there, of course." He glared at Harry. "I am _ashamed _to be a Malfoy." His eyes were cold, his voice seductive. He held out the fistful of powder again, gesturing towards his peer. "Go on, Harry." He pointed at the fireplace behind him with his wand, the snake offering the apple. "I know you don't trust me, but you want him dead as much as I do, I think . . ."

Hesitantly, Harry lowered his wand. "Hurry up, Potter my bloody arm is tired," said Draco impatiently. His nemesis held out his hand and the Malfoy heir poured the shimmering dust into it. Harry stepped into the fireplace. "Malfoy Manor," he enunciated and dashed the substance to the ground.

As Draco had described, Harry came out in a cold stone hearth closed off with a thick metal grate. The grate began moving towards him as soon as his feet hit the ground, moving soundlessly, sinisterly forward in its tracks. As a quaint little touch, the grate was equipped with some rather prickly looking spikes. "Ophiuchus," said Harry hastily. The grate immediately stopped, squeaking slightly. It didn't seem like guests used this entrance very often - Harry had to squeeze past stacks of pots and pans blocking his exit before he emerged into the kitchen proper. Stepping into the room, he perused his surroundings with wand at the ready. It was a long kitchen, twice as long as it was wide. The floor and walls were black marble, giving a semblance of elegance, but copper pots and wooden bowls piled around almost as high as the ceiling belied the idea that the kitchen was a place the Mafoys spent quality time. After circling the room once, Harry turned to progress into the mansion. A dark hall stretched itself languidly down the middle of the building. Harry traversed its length slowly, poking his head into the many sitting rooms, libraries, smoking rooms and guest rooms. It all appeared to be empty. No wizards, no house elves, even. At the end was a large chamber used presumably for entertaining if Harry could tell anything by the severe seating which banked a low ebony coffee table in the left half of the room. The right wing was occupied by a large dining table, a gleaming chessboard suspended in game on its surface. A dark green rug swathed its floor and a fire crackled at each extremity of the room. Harry stepped into the light.

Tied to a high-backed chair in the middle of the space, his eyes registered a figure with longish red hair. "Ginny?" he gasped, rushing towards her. The girl's head was slumped over her knees, her hair a waterfall down to her toes. Harry cupped her chin with one hand and pushed her hair back with the other. His wand fell absently to the floor as he gasped and let go of the delicate head – it had no face.

"I've been expecting you," drawled a familiar voice. Harry's neck cracked as he snapped around to face his adversary. Lucius Malfoy stood in the doorway with his wand aloft, robed in deep blue. He looked like an ink spot on the flickering yellow wall. Harry groped along the floor for his wand, attempting to maintain eye-contact with the older man.

"On your left, Potter." Harry glanced down and grasped the wood with his hand. He tremblingly raising it level to Lucius' own. "You don't have it in you, Potter," he whispered, taking a step towards the boy. "You're not a killer. You're too . . . weak." He paused. "After all the fun I had with your lithe little friend, I thought you'd be rather more friendly towards me.

"_You_." Harry was seething, his fingers white around his wand.

"You're not a killer, much as you want to be," he smirked. "Perhaps you should try being more of a lover – like me. I'm sure you could teach the Hogwarts girls a thing or two, given time. Perhaps you just need an apt instructor, like Miss. Granger did . . ."

Harry's eyes were swimming with his fury. He felt he energy sizzle through his veins, through his wand. Before he had even said it, Lucius looked stunned. But he did say it, and the words coursed through the room as the breath rushed out of his body. "Avada Kedavra!" he bellowed.

Harry shuddered as Malfoy fell down like a rag doll. He, too, collapsed - sobs wracking his body. He had murdered another human being. All his hate and range had fled with the act, leaving him totally empty. He felt like a child, he felt destroyed.

"Well, well, Potter. I must admit, I didn't believe you could do it. I am impressed." Harry raised his head. The disembodied voice belonged to a pale, deathly thin man before him. Seven Death Eaters stood in a semi-circle around one figure, obscenely snake-like yet anthropoid. "Congratulations," whispered Lord Voldemort. Harry's spine tingled at the sound of his cold voice. "I admire your lack of formality. I assure you I will reciprocate. "Avada Kedavra!" he hissed, before Harry Potter even had a chance to raise his wand, before he had a chance to speak, before he had a chance to forgive himself – the Boy Who Lived, died.

The Dark Lord surveyed the two bodies on the floor – one dark, one light. One young, one old. He stepped over his former servant and turned over Harry's body with his foot. "Surprisingly easy," he sniffed. "The boy was too weak to even put up a fight." He faced his remaining servants. "Nott!" he called. "Send his body to Albus as a mark of my regard."

"Yes, my Lord," he intoned, going up to Harry's body and hooking his hands under the lifeless arms before apparating away.

"Bellatrix."

"Yes, my Lord."

"Inform your sister that she is now a widow," he said casually. The woman nodded. "Tell her not to mention anything to young Draco." The side of the Dark Lord's mouth twitched upward. "I shall inform him myself when we pay Hogwarts a visit."


	24. Chapter 24

Sitting in his office, the wizened professor ran thin fingertips through his beard. Squinting in concentration, his blue eyes seemed faded with the whites tinged red under heavy lids. Reaching down to the Healer's short note, he scanned it for the last time before crumpling the parchment and tossing it across the room with frustration.

_Dear Professor Dumbledore,_

_We regret to inform you that patient number 364849030200184, Miss Hermione Granger, has disappeared from St. Mungos. We take no responsibility for her outside our walls.. _

_Yours sincerely,_

_Healer Wipple_

_P.S. Please let us know where to send her bill._

The aged man flexed his wrists and sighed with idleness. He feared for her safety, but knew she must have left of her own accord. There was no way anyone could have apparated into her room or whisked her away with the tight security there. But what now? He could, of course, go about and search for her. And then what? Bring her back against her will? No, she wouldn't stand for that. If only he had spoken to her beforehand . . . But he had been concentrating on other things, still was.

It had been hours since Theodore Nott himself had flooed into the headmaster's office, bearing his terrible cargo. Dumbledore had been ready for news, and perhaps a duel – but not this. It weighed heavy on his heart. He was, after all, just a wizard. Just a man.

"Draco's gone, Albus."

The headmaster turned to his left, where Minerva McGonagall stood in the doorway with a look of defeat on her face.

"What do you mean, Minerva?"

"I mean he's left the school. I couldn't stop him, Albus – he just walked right out the gates without a word or a look back." Her chin began to wobble. "I feel as if Hogwarts has begun to fall apart . . ."

"It has."

The witch's fearful eyes traced suspicious lines over her colleague.

"Hermione has run away from St. Mungos."

"No!" The Transfiguration professor brought a pale hand to her mouth.

"Yes . . ."

"There's still Harry!" exclaimed the flustered witch. "There's still him, and in him lies our hope. There must still be hope, there's always been -" Dumbledore shook his head slowly, avoiding her eyes as she mumbled on. " . . . Albus, Albus, look at me!" she cried, almost shrieking.

"No, Minerva."

"'No' what?"

"There is no hope."

"What?" her heart thudded forcefully through her robes as Dumbledore motioned to the wide black box sitting below the sill of the far right window. McGonagall took a few quick steps towards the receptacle and threw back the lid.

Harry Potter's wide empty eyes stared apologetically up at her.

---

Hermione panicked, racing headlong into the skirmish. "Stupefy!" she kept yelling, until her throat was almost hoarse. But there were too many, the school was losing. She had to find Harry! Racing down the corridors and up several flights of stairs she saw nothing but carnage. A few first years to her left, a seventh year to her right – Professor Vector slumped over the railing on the fifth floor. Death Eaters, hooded and masked attacking from every direction. But she kept firing spells from her wand and she kept running. Most of them were preoccupied anyway, turning the many corpses into Inferi which they sent lurching towards her. She did not fear them, the empty shells. She pushed them away savagely, or hexed them, or just ran. The attack must have come around two or three in the morning, because now Hermione could see the sun begin to rise . . . it was early, so of course Harry would be somewhere near his room, yes? She hoped she was right.

It had been only minutes before that she had been sitting in Godric's study, flipping through the personal memoirs of the late, great wizard. At first she had thought it was an earthquake – then she heard yells and part of ceiling had fallen in. Poking her head out into the belly of the castle from her isolated haven, she saw people running hither and thither and hooded figures everywhere, herding the students downstairs. Slamming the door, she had retreated into her hiding place and racked her brain for almost an hour trying the decide what to do. In the end, she had stuffed a few items (the hag's bag, Godric's diary and a sharp letter opener) into her robes and fled. As she approached the entrance to the Gryffindor common room, it all seemed like she had always been running, had been for weeks, not mere minutes.

---

Hitching up her robes with one hand and grasping her wand with the other, she practically flew the last ten feet up to the vacated portrait of the fat lady. The canvas was slashed, the frame hung open on one hinge. The inhabitants of the other paintings around the castle had left as well, leaving the walls spookily bare. She hesitated before moving to enter the common room.

"Miss Granger, I think," trilled a cool female voice from behind her.

"Expelliarmus!" cried Hermione, sending Bellatrix Lestrange's wand ricocheting off the wall and down the stairs. "You keep making the same mistakes, Bellatrix," she hissed, "underestimating youth."

"Indeed?" asked the raven-haired woman, not even flustered. "Perhaps that's true. But at least I'm not risking my neck looking for someone who is already dead. Now that's rather silly, don't you think?"

"Dead?" breathed Hermione, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Well of course you wouldn't, _darling_," exclaimed Bellatrix with a sneer. "You've been holed up like a chicken this past week haven't you? I suppose you gave Lucius a run for his money, eh?" She took a deliberate step forward. "Well if you've been recovering from the effects of his, hmm . . . passions? I dare say . . . then of _course_ you wouldn't know that your little Harry Potter is dead." Bellatrix enunciated the last word carefully, waiting for a reaction from her young adversary, but none came. Hermione's mouth was dry, her head reeling. Bellatrix was a dream, a figment of her addled mind. A phantom. A voice of truth. She turned tail and fled into the portrait hole.

Behind her, she heard the other woman scrambling for her wand and silently berated herself for having not hexed her. Blinded by the tears swimming feebly over her pupils, she tore up the stairs to the sixth year boys' room. "Harry, Harry, Harry . . ." she found herself panting and she ran into the room. She threw open her friend's trunk, ripping through the clothing, searching for something of use. But there was no invisibility cloak, not even his broom was there.

"You can hide, darling, but you can't run," came a cool voice from the base of the stairs. Desperate, Hermione drew the drapes closed over Neville's bed, then Seamus', all the way down to Harry's. She threw herself onto the mussed up covers before pulling his drapes closed too. She heard Bellatrix take a step into the room.

"Avada Kedavra!" she cried, and a bed (perhaps Ron's?) exploded into shards of wood. Hermione heard the footsteps patter indecisively around the room. Bellatrix liked her games, it seemed. But this one couldn't last long. Panicking, Hermione suddenly remembered what was hidden under her robes. She fumbled for the time-turner.

"Avada Kedavra!" she heard again, and another piece of furniture exploded.

Biting her wand between her teeth, Hermione finally pulled the pendulum from her shirt and tried to turn the dial back one notch, but her hold was slipping under the sweat of her fingers. Just as Bellatrix pushed aside the drapes that protected Hermione's hiding spot, the dial turned, making a soft click.

Hermione found herself crouching on Harry's bed, the day before and thank goodness he wasn't in it! Sunlight streamed in through the windows onto the unmade mattress. The covers had been sloppily strewn about - it seemed like something lumpy was hidden under them. Reaching her hand under the sheets she felt Harry's invisibility cloak and broom – just the items she had been looking for minutes earlier (or days later?). From down the stairs, she heard Dean and Seamus shouting at each other. Quietly, she donned the cloak and flicked open the window above Harry's bed.

Sitting on the windowsill, she held out the broom and with some trepidation, mounted it. Pushing away from the aperture, she felt the cool autumn breeze rush over her body and felt – for the first time in the past few weeks – liberated. Accelerating forward with what little broom-riding skill she had, Hermione headed for the Western outskirts of the Forbidden Forest. There, she thought, she could take some time to think – if Harry wasn't dead yet, she had to warn him . . . and of course, she had to warn Dumbledore that the school was going be attacked. But rest, rest, rest she needed a moment alone first. Bellatrix's jabs at her encounter with Lucius had sickened her. She could feel images pushing themselves to the front of her mind and she had to let them surface or they would torment her until she exploded from the effort of suppression. Landing with a jolt on the ground, Hermione collapsed gratefully on a patch of green moss and lost herself in tears.

For the rest of the afternoon she holed up under a broad oak tree and watched the pristine countryside go about its innocent cycle of life. There were jackrabbits and sparrows, a deer and even a unicorn that timidly poked its head out from behind a pine tree before leaping back among the greenery.

As the sun slipped past the horizon, Hermione sighed. Her responsibility now was to warn the school. Waiting until dusk had almost completely enveloped the landscape with its grey curtain, she arranged Harry's cloak over her shoulders, picked up the broom and made for Hogwarts castle. She knew the current 'Hermione' was hiding in Godric Gryffindor's office at the moment – so at least she didn't have to worry about bumping into herself – but then, that fact raised its own slew of worries. First, why had she never heard of the office before? How was it hidden, why was it hidden, and how come she had been given access? And on top of that, what was with the little bag the witch in St. Mungos had given her? She could feel its bulge in her left pocket, where she had stashed the trove. But what was the significance of its contents? She was almost sure the handwriting on the parchment was hers, but it was absurd to think that she had written it. Or was it?

Shaking any further thoughts from her head as she slipped through the entrance to the castle, she adjusted the cloak's hood around her face and waited outside the Great Hall for supper to begin. This would be the perfect time to warn the whole school – everybody in the same room, ready to hear her horrifying tale. She felt like a cursed seer, bringing the gruesome news of the future to the would-be victims of the past.

As the throng of students entering the hall thickened, Hermione dared to push herself through the doors and maneuver up to the dais in front of the staff table. A few people looked suspiciously over their shoulders for the source of her ghost-like nudges, but none saw the brunette take her place at the front of the room, readying herself to speak the unspeakable. Her peers continued shuffling into their seats for a good ten minutes. She saw Ron and Ginny, Seamus, Dean, Neville – the whole Gryffindor crew. Crabbe, Goyle and Parkinson were at the Slytherin table, but Draco was not. And hard as she looked for Harry, he too was absent. Adrenaline flooded into Hermione's blood as she put the two missing boys together in her head.

Finally, the room quieted down. But before Hermione had quite worked up the courage to lower her hood, the headmaster advanced swiftly to the dais and addressed the room.

"I have terrible news," he stated, "which I wish to deliver without unnecessary ado."

All eyes turned onto the wizened man, questioning looks given from both the students and staff.

"Harry Potter is dead."

Around the Great Hall there were blank looks and gasps of horror. A few people seemed to be stifling nervous laughter.

"I am completely serious." A tear slipped down one shriveled cheek and as Dumbledore wiped it away, even the skeptical turned grave. At the staff table there were tears and hard looks and resigned faces. For Hermione, she felt her heart fall in her chest. She was too late. She had gone back a whole day in time and she was too late . . .

She looked for Ron. His face had crumpled and he was holding Ginny in his arms as she cried freely. That was it. Harry was dead. Action and reaction, his death was literally the end of the world. Hermione felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. It hurt worse than when she had realized that she had lost her baby, worse than knowing that Sirius loved her all summer and she couldn't even remember any of it.

"The Dark Lord sent his body to me this morning," continued the headmaster. "I have notified your parents of the news, and first thing tomorrow morning the Hogwarts express will take you all home." He hesitated. "Hogwarts is no longer safe, I fear. That is all I have to say."

For once, the room did not erupt with sound after the professor had reclaimed his seat. Plates filled with food, but barely any was consumed. Nobody dared speak. Everyone realized the weight of the old man's words. And Hermione realized that she had forgotten her purpose. Exiting the hall, she wandered through empty corridors until she arrived at the gargoyle guarding Dumbledore's office. She still clutched Harry's broom in her hands, drawing it to her side under the cover of invisibility.

If she hadn't taken it, would he still be alive? If he had his cloak, would there still be hope? Or had he left before Hermione had even laid a finger on the treasures? The questions buzzed in her mind like a swarm of stinging wasps, numbing her desperate brain.

Could she, in fact, change Time? Or more sinisterly, were her actions simply filling the footsteps laid out for her?


End file.
